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How Trump's daily White House schedule full of 'executive time' compares to Obama, Bush, and Clinton
How Trump's daily White House schedule full of 'executive time' compares to Obama, Bush, and Clinton
John HaltiwangerFeb 5, 2019, 02:12 IST
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting about cutting business regulations in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, October 17, 2018.Saul Loeb/Getty Images
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President Donald Trump is perhaps the most unorthodox commander-in-chief in modern US history, and this even appears to extend to how he schedules each day.
According to a recent analysis from Axios based on months of leaked private scheduling, roughly 60% of Trump's time is unstructured.
How presidents schedule each day can tell you a lot about their approach to leadership by revealing what they tend to prioritize.
Every president in US history has taken a different approach to what many would describe as the most difficult job in the world.
How presidents schedule each day can tell you a lot about their personality, their approach to policy, and the task of leading the country more generally.
Here's a look at the daily White House schedules of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.
Clinton was known to be un-punctual. He was apparently fairly unpredictable and quite a night owl, but still had a lot of structure to most of his days in the White House. He'd work long days and sleep around five hours a night.
Bush would finish the workday early in the evening, around 5:30 or 6 p.m., and then used the rest of his day to workout, eat dinner, and catch up on any briefing materials. He was typically in bed by around 9 p.m.
Most days, Obama headed to the Oval Office around 9 a.m. and usually had six meetings scheduled throughout the workday in addition to intelligence and economy briefings.
President Donald Trump's daily schedule differs significantly from his predecessors. A recent analysis of months of Trump's private schedule, which was leaked, suggests roughly 60% of his time is unstructured.
According to the analysis, Trump typically wakes up early – around 6 a.m. – and spends the first five hours of his day in unstructured "Executive Time."
The White House schedule places Trump in the Oval Office from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., but the president is rarely actually in his office during that time, according to what sources told Axios. Instead, Trump reportedly spends that time in the residence tweeting, watching television, making phone calls, and reading the news.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump's unorthodox schedule. In a statement to Axios, she said, "President Trump has a different leadership style than his predecessors and the results speak for themselves."
Sanders added, "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."
Trump's book, "The Art of the Deal," appears to offer some insight into why he seemingly prefers less structure in his day. He wrote, "Most people are surprised by the way I work. I play it very loose. I don’t carry a briefcase. I try not to schedule too many meetings. I leave my door open. You can’t be imaginative or entrepreneurial if you’ve got too much structure. I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops."
