Posted on 01/31/2025 3:47:56 PM PST by Jyotishi
Washington (PTI) -- The White House stenographers have a problem. Donald Trump is talking so much, the people responsible for transcribing his public remarks are struggling to keep up with all the words.
There were more than 22,000 on Inauguration Day, then another 17,000 when Trump visited disaster sites in North Carolina and California. 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.
Now there are discussions about hiring additional staff to keep up with the workload, according to people with knowledge of the conversations who insisted in anonymity to discuss internal matters.
The flood of words is one of the most visible — or audible — shifts from Biden to Trump, who craves the spotlight and understands better than most politicians that attention is a form of power. He’s been speaking nearly nonstop since starting his second term, drowning out dissenting voices and leaving his opponents struggling to be heard.
Take Wednesday, for example. During a signing ceremony for legislation to accelerate deportations, Trump, a Republican, talked up his accomplishments, claimed Hamas was using US-funded condoms to make bombs in Gaza, defended his administration’s efforts to freeze federal spending and reduce the government workforce, veered through descriptions of migrant violence and made the surprise announcement that Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would be used as a detention centre for people who are in the US illegally.
Trump’s commentary remains laden with falsehoods, including baseless allegations about voter fraud and assertions that California water policies worsened the recent wildfires. Sometimes he speaks off the cuff about consequential geopolitical matters, such as a recent suggestion that Palestinians should be displaced from Gaza while the enclave is rebuilt. It can be hard to know when to take him seriously, like when he muses about serving a third term, which the US Constitution does not allow.
But now that Trump is back in the presidency, it’s hard to ignore him.
“He’s dictating the news on his terms,” said Michael LaRosa, who worked as a television producer before serving as a spokesperson for former first lady Jill Biden. “He’s become America’s assignment editor.”
Most presidents try to start their terms with a bang, seizing the moment when their influence could be at its peak. However, Trump is in a different league.
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.
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.
It’s also much more than when Trump took office for his first term eight years ago. Back then, he was only on camera talking for 3 hours and 41 minutes and spoke 33,571 words.
Trump has spent decades practising the best ways to get people to pay attention to him. As a New York businessman, he fed stories to gossip columnists, added gold plating to buildings and slapped his name on every product that he sold. His efforts reached an apex with “The Apprentice”, the reality television show that beamed him into American living rooms.
“One of the things that has given him the advantage is that he thinks like an executive producer,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican communications strategist. “He’s constantly programming the next hour and trying to keep his audience engaged.”
A sign of what was to come arrived shortly after Trump was sworn in. He delivered an inaugural address and then promptly gave more remarks to supporters that were even longer than his speech. And then he spoke at a downtown arena, where people had gathered for a rally, and later he parried questions from reporters for nearly an hour in the Oval Office while signing executive orders.
At one point, he turned to Fox News Channel’s Peter Doocy.
“Does Biden ever do news conferences like this?” Trump said. “How many news conferences, Peter, has he done like this?”
“Like this?” Doocy responded.
“None,” Trump said, answering his own question.
On Friday, Trump presented a tour de force of talking, demonstrating that he’s far more willing to put himself in unscripted situations than Biden was.
He spoke with reporters while leaving the White House in the morning. He talked to them again after landing in North Carolina, then again at a briefing on the recovery from Hurricane Helene, and then again while meeting with victims of the storm.
Trump flew that afternoon to Los Angeles, where he conversed with local officials about the recent wildfires. Before boarding Air Force One to leave the city in the evening, he answered more questions from reporters on the tarmac.
As his travels continued over the weekend, Trump spoke to reporters twice at the back of Air Force One — as often as Biden did for his entire term.
“Transparency is back!” wrote longtime aide Margo Martin on social media.
That’s not the word that Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Centre at the University of Pennsylvania, would use.
“Being accessible and being transparent are two different things,” she said.
Sometimes more talking doesn’t produce more clarity. One afternoon, Trump told reporters that there were “no surprises” when Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski decided to oppose Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon. The next morning, Trump said he was “very surprised” by their votes.
Jamieson worries that the frenzied pace will exhaust people.
“More people will simply check out,” she said. “And that’s a problem. An informed citizenry is an engaged citizenry.”
Kate Berner, who worked on Biden’s communications staff, said Trump’s constant talking helps keep his adversaries off balance.
“By doing so much and saying so much, it is hard for people who oppose him to organise,” she said. “And it is hard for any one thing to take hold.”
But there’s also a risk for Trump, Berner said. If he’s not careful, she said, he could once again start “wearing out his welcome with the American people”.
It would help, no doubt, if he spoke in complete sentences — but that is not his way.
Another opinion piece masquerading as a piece of journalism.
That’s probably why that idiot Tarlov was going off about how disorganized things were...her little pea-brain can’t keep up.
doesn’t matter if reporters can’t keep up, they will just make up a bunch of shit anyway.
The media is realizing that Trump is controlling the narrative and they’re panicking.
Plenty of recording devices available. Reciord it as spoken, then pause or play as necessary to transcribe. Some of them will even do speech to text.
But. I guess professional stenographers don’t need to know tech stuff.
“’But there’s also a risk for Trump,’ Berner said. If he’s not careful, she said, he could once again start ‘wearing out his welcome with the American people.’”
Whatever, LOSER. Keep talking Mr. PRESIDENT! I’m LOVING this scorched Earth, take no prisoners LEADERSHIP! There really IS no other alternative after what, ‘We The People’ have been put through for the past few DECADES!
MAGA!
Ms. Berner? You’re FIRED! *SMIRK*
Hire new proficient stenographers who weren’t hired using DEI as a qualifier.
“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.”
These morons haven’t watched/read/heard a single SECOND of Shakespeare in their sad, lonely, desperate little lives.
*DERISIVE SNORT*
But I bet they’re STILL watching Star Wars movies decades in!
I know these are fightin’ words, but seriously? Were ANY of the movies beyond the original worth their salt?
*DUCKS FOR COVER* ;)
What’s a “stenographer?”
Is that like a “travel agent?”
I can imagine it must be pretty hard to keep up with a President who speaks in a stream-of-consciousness manner after four years of a president who exhibited no consciousness of any kind.
I thought this was the Bee until the got excessivly wordy
What’s a “stenographer?”
Is that like a “travel agent?”
Haha. I commented earlier that some urinalist used the word, “fortnight.” What’s in the water in DC?
Other occupations we may soon read about:
Telegraph operator
Secretary
Ledger keeper
Courier
Mail sorter
Carbon copy clerk
Switchboard operator
File clerk
Dictaphone operator
Typist
Stupid spin.
He is running the opposition into the ground. They can’t get their feet under them to for a coherently plan to oppose him.
The Right cannot starve the Dinosaur media so he is feeding them so many sound bites they are choking on it.
TV repairman
Elevator operator
G'night all. :^)
Why does anyone listen to her?
Jamieson worries that the frenzied pace will exhaust people.
“More people will simply check out,” she said. “And that’s a problem. An informed citizenry is an engaged citizenry.”
Just curious. I wonder if Ms. Jamieson ever raised the alarm or tried to inform the citizenry about Biden’s mental impairment over the past 4 years. Just curious.
“He [Trump] is dictating the news on his terms,” said Michael LaRosa, who worked as a television producer before serving as a spokesperson for former first lady Jill Biden. “He’s become America’s assignment editor.”
The left stream media, during the Biden administration, was reduced to reprinting Biden administration press releases and passing them off as reporting. I’m guessing Michael LaRosa didn’t have a problem with that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.