--- title: Donald Trump Argues That He Does Not Watch Much Television description: President Trump pushed back against a report that he watches four hours of television a day. canonical: https://time.com/5058461/donald-trump-television-tv-watching/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-12-11T15:44:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-12T23:41:45.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump Denied That He Watches Four Hours of TV a Day og:description: He pushed back on a report that he's always in front of the tube og:url: https://time.com/5058461/donald-trump-television-tv-watching/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt966b750b9c4407aa/6988f48d22fb857601e24005/gettyimages-683492496.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 594 og:image:height: 334 og:image:alt: U.S. President Donald Trump is seen on a television news show in the West Wing of the White House, on May 15, 2017 in Washington, DC. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Denied That He Watches Four Hours of TV a Day twitter:description: He pushed back on a report that he's always in front of the tube twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt966b750b9c4407aa/6988f48d22fb857601e24005/gettyimages-683492496.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump Took to Twitter to Deny He Watches a Lot of TV > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Updated: Dec 12, 2023 11:41 PM UTCPublished: Dec 11, 2017 3:44 PM UTC  U.S. President Donald Trump is seen on a television news show in the West Wing of the White House, on May 15, 2017 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Donald Trump is seen on a television news show in the West Wing of the White House, on May 15, 2017 in Washington, DC. Mark Wilson—Getty Images by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Updated: Dec 12, 2023 11:41 PM UTCPublished: Dec 11, 2017 3:44 PM UTC President Trump argued that he does not watch a lot of television Monday. Responding to a [New York _Times_ report](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/us/politics/donald-trump-president.html?%5Fr=0) which said he wakes up at 5:30 a.m. to start watching cable news and can watch least four hours of television a day, often with the sound muted, Trump tweeted that the story was “false.” “Another false story, this time in the Failing @nytimes, that I watch 4-8 hours of television a day,” he tweeted. “Wrong!” > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/940223974985871360) The report, which was based on interviews with 60 advisers, associates, friends and members of Congress, was not the first one to say that Trump watches TV. An [Axios report from January](https://www.axios.com/trump-101-what-he-reads-and-watches-2210510272.html) broke down a media diet that included “Morning Joe,” “Fox and Friends,” CNN and the Sunday news shows. In [an exclusive interview with TIME](http://time.com/donald-trump-after-hours/) in May, Trump showed off a new 60-plus-inch flat-screen television installed at the White House which allows him to scroll through news clips from earlier in the day. Trump also [regularly responds](https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/10/this-guy-just-proved-that-trump-basically-live-twe.html) to interviews and news presented on morning cable shows on Twitter. In response to a fact-checking question submitted by the New York _Times_ for the same story earlier in November, Trump [told reporters](http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/359897-trump-i-dont-watch-much-television-primarily-because-of-documents) aboard Air Force One en route to Asia that he does “not watch much television.” “Believe it or not, even when I’m in Washington or New York, I do not watch much television,” he said. “People that don’t know me, they like to say I watch television — people with fake sources. You know, fake reporters, fake sources.” “But I don’t get to watch much television,” he added. “Primarily because of documents. I’m reading documents. A lot.” During the trip, Trump also complained that he was forced to watch CNN because he was overseas. > [](https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/930748627642998784) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5058461/donald-trump-television-tv-watching/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5058461/donald-trump-television-tv-watching/"},"headline":"Trump Took to Twitter to Deny He Watches a Lot of TV","datePublished":"2017-12-11T15:44:43.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-12T23:41:45.000Z","description":"He pushed back on a report that he's always in front of the tube","url":"https://time.com/5058461/donald-trump-television-tv-watching/","keywords":["Donald Trump","CNN","Television","White House","MSNBC","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt966b750b9c4407aa/6988f48d22fb857601e24005/gettyimages-683492496.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt966b750b9c4407aa/6988f48d22fb857601e24005/gettyimages-683492496.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"U.S. President Donald Trump is seen on a television news show in the West Wing of the White House, on May 15, 2017 in Washington, DC.","caption":"U.S. President Donald Trump is seen on a television news show in the West Wing of the White House, on May 15, 2017 in Washington, DC.","creditText":"Mark Wilson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5058461/donald-trump-television-tv-watching/","name":"Trump Took to Twitter to Deny He Watches a Lot of TV"}}]}] ```