The president who likes to put on a show is mostly offstage these days.
Since President Trump was declared the election’s loser earlier this month, gone are blustery speeches and stemwinder White House news conferences about the
coronavirus, which never disappeared like he promised — or any other topic for that matter. Gone are lengthy call-in sessions with favored Fox anchors that often stretched so long the hosts had to push to conclude the calls.
Gone, too, are regular White House jousting matches with the press, impromptu Oval Office appearances with random guests or any pretense of being interested in many of the duties of the job.
In the 19 days since the election, 12 have included no events on the president’s schedule. He has appeared at public events four times and has played golf at his own Virginia course six times. He has taken no questions from reporters.
Since Election Day, he has spoken 8,143 words over 18 days through Saturday,
according to Factba.se, a website which tracks all of his utterances and movements. On average in 2020, he spoke 8,398 words daily, according to Bill Frischling, the website’s owner, but only 454 words per day since Nov. 3. On the last day of the campaign alone, he uttered more than 55,000 words.
He averaged about 48 minutes on camera every day in 2020, Frischling said. He has spent about 50 minutes on camera total since Nov. 3.