Michael Hernandez
04 February 2019•Update: 05 February 2019
By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON
U.S. President Donald Trump spends nearly two-thirds of his time in unstructured "executive time," according to months of his personal schedules leaked to the press.
Axios obtained the president's day-to-day schedules from an unidentified White House source.
The schedules, all of which were published in full Sunday by the online news website, indicate Trump spends about the first five hours of each day in "executive time," watching television, making calls and reading the morning's newspapers from his residence.
The unstructured periods are also generally sprinkled throughout his schedule between meeting and intelligence briefings, according to the voluminous records.
The schedules run from the day after the 2018 midterm elections, Nov. 7, through Feb. 1.
During that time Axios counted 297 hours Trump spent in "executive time" from 51 private schedules it was given. But some days do not have corresponding schedules.
That roundly surpasses the 77 hours he had scheduled for official meetings.
The daily schedules do not include all of Trump's meetings, in part due to his spontaneous approach to daily life and the presidency. Other meetings, about one or two per day, are kept on a schedule for a smaller group of White House officials.
"While he spends much of his average day in scheduled meetings, events, and calls, there is time to allow for a more creative environment that has helped make him the most productive President in modern history," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told Axios in response to their report.
