President Donald Trump speaks so much that White House stenographers struggle to keep up with him, the Associated Press reported Friday.
“There were more than 22,000 [words] on Inauguration Day, then another 17,000 when Trump visited disaster sites in North Carolina and California,” AP White House correspondent Chris Megerian wrote. “It’s enough to strain the ears and fingers of even the most dedicated stenographer, especially after four years of Joe Biden’s relative quiet.”
The problem could lead to hiring more people for the role, because Trump has “been speaking nearly nonstop since starting his second term, drowning out dissenting voices and leaving his opponents struggling to be heard” — a marked shift from President Biden.
A second problem is that Trump’s “commentary remains laden with falsehoods.” During a signing ceremony for legislation that will speed up deportations of undocumented immigrants in the US, Trump claimed Hamas is using US-funded condoms to make bombs, insisted his plan to freeze federal spending was sound, and announced the U.S. will use Guantanamo Bay as a detention center.
“He’s dictating the news on his terms,” Michael LaRosa, a spokesperson for former First Lady Jill Biden, told the AP. “He’s become America’s assignment editor.”
“Biden, a Democrat, spent 2 hours and 36 minutes talking on camera and used 24,259 words in his first week in office four years ago, according to numbers generated by Factba.se,” Megerian added.
“Trump’s comparable stats: nearly 7 hours and 44 minutes and 81,235 words last week. That’s longer than watching the original “Star Wars” trilogy back-to-back-to-back, and more words than “Macbeth,” “Hamlet” and “Richard III” combined.”
