Where Trump feels most productive
President Donald Trump is increasingly morphing the White House residence into a second Oval. It’s become the place where Trump feels most productive, where he avoids meddling by his staff and where he speed-dials his network of confidantes, GOP lawmakers and TV pundits.
Heh, “productive,” that’s a good one. Also “meddling” – because he thinks he’s the god-emperor with infinite powers, geddit?
Maintaining a sanctuary to work and think has taken on greater importance for the president as he increasingly feels under siege by the Democratic impeachment inquiry.
Hahahahaha to work and think, oh that’s hilarious, I’m out of breath from laughing.
“The Oval presents itself as historic and it gives off a sense of power, but the residence has a sense of exclusivity,” said a former senior administration official, describing Trump’s affinity for conducting business there. “He works more in the residence because he is not constrained there by staffers knocking on the door.”
Hmm I’m not sure I get this joke. The Oval presents itself? What, the Oval Office has a mind? And obviously “the residence has a sense of exclusivity” because that’s how residences work: they’re for the people wot reside in them. There would be even more of a sense of exclusivity if Trump locked himself in a bathroom.
But the joke about working more is still funny.
But most days and nights, if Trump is not on the campaign trail or a foreign trip, he happily stays inside his White House bubble and the residence — working late into the night and very early in the morning.
Not quite as funny the third time, but still raises a smile, or grimace.
Now he tends to go to the Oval Office and adjacent private dining room for five to six hours a day for formal meetings, lunches and ceremonial events, current and former administration officials say. But the bulk of his work in the mornings, late afternoons, evenings and weekends happens in his private quarters where Trump can call staff and advisers as early as 6 a.m. and up to midnight. Sometimes he or one of his aides will summon a senior staffer to the residence for an informal discussion or quick meeting to review a speech.
He also uses it during working hours as a place to watch TV freely, tweet and serve as own his one-man communications director and political strategist.
Calling Trump yammering at people on the phone while watching tv “work” – still funny. Or do I mean sad? One of those.
I was a bit confused for a bit there, what with The Oval being a famous cricket ground. But, yes, his ‘work’ is pushing it. Maybe ‘output’ would be more accurate, or better yet, ‘excretions’.
Yes I dislike that insidery “the Oval” nickname, even without the fact that Kennington has dibs.
What Trump does isn’t cricket.
When I first saw the article, I thought that the “second Oval” was going to turn out to be the toilet.
The building in which the Oval Office is located is a second Oval? I’m confused.
The residence is different from the West Wing where the Ovl Offs is. I didn’t know this until very recently, some time in Trump’s reign of terror – I never paid that much attention before. I always thought it was just one big house but the wings are apparently pretty separate.
The building is deceptive, because you only really see the original building (the Residence) when you see most photos, but what are essentially long corridors have been run to two new buildings (East and West Wings), with function rooms like the Press Briefing Room as part of those corridors. The building is about 200 yards end to end, the Residence only about 50. If you asked most people where they thought the Oval Office, they would say behind the columns in the rounded front of the facade of the Residence.
Heather Cox Richardson on the import of Trump staying in the residence::
That makes sense, but on the other hand Trump has never been constrained by what presidents generally do. He just does what he feels like, and lies about it when anyone objects.
True, but in conjunction with his unscheduled hospital visit it seems like a plausible explanation.
That plus all the other signs of rapidly vanishing brain functions, yes. Both explanations make sense. It could be that both apply. (I should have said “and also” rather than “but.”)
Yeah, agreed.