LONG WINDED

White House Stenographers Can’t Keep Up With Trump’s Verbiage

The president has already spoken 81,235 words just last week.

President Donald Trump has had so much to say since his return to the Capitol that White House stenographers, the individuals tasked with transcription his words, are now having a hard time keeping up. “One of the things that has given him the advantage is that he thinks like an executive producer,” Kevin Madden, a Republican communications strategist, told AP News. “He’s constantly programming the next hour and trying to keep his audience engaged.” Trump’s words, or rather their ferocious volume, also draw in stark comparison with former President Joe Biden, who is a man of very few words. Biden, for example, spent 2 hours and 36 minutes talking on camera and used 24,259 words during his first week in 2021, AP reported. By comparison, Trump has shared nearly 7 hours and 44 minutes of camera time. For those of you doing the math, that’s about 81,235 words just last week. Examining the bigger events since his second term began, that’s 22,000 words on Inauguration Day and 17,000 words during his visit to disaster sites in North Carolina and California. “He’s dictating the news on his terms,” Michael LaRosa, who worked as a television producer before serving as a spokesperson for Jill Biden, told AP News. “He’s become America’s assignment editor.”