Trump directs team to beef up his public schedule to combat questions about his stamina

By Kristen Holmes, Kevin Liptak, CNN

(CNN) — Vague descriptions of presidential signing ceremonies, policy meetings and industry executive sit downs — mostly behind closed doors — began peppering President Donald Trump’s public schedule at the end of last year.

The additions to the schedule, which is blasted out to the media every night, were no accident. Trump himself had given the directive to beef up the information.

Despite near-daily appearances before cameras, some of them stretching for hours, Trump, 79, had become frustrated at a perception — fueled by analyses of his daily public schedules — that his days were lighter now than during his first four years in office. In his mind, it only contributed to questions swirling about his health and stamina, sources said.

Shortly after, his team began noting private meetings on the daily schedule sent to reporters and posted online. Aides said the goal is to better reflect what they believe are jam-packed days. They’ve also started listing meetings and interviews that typically wouldn’t appear on the public calendar.

Some, like “Policy Time” or “Signing Time,” located in the Oval Office, offer few details. Trump, who has insisted he will never use an autopen to sign documents, often has stacks of papers awaiting his signature.

The additions to Trump’s public schedule were his idea, multiple sources told CNN. Long wary of appearing to slow down, despite his advanced age, Trump personally asked that more events be listed on his schedules.

He had been enraged after a November article in The New York Times suggested his aging was impacting his job. The newspaper’s analysis of Trump’s official public schedules found his total number of official appearances had decreased by 39% compared to his first year in office in 2017, that his events were starting later on average, and that he had taken fewer domestic trips.

The president wanted it to be known that even if his public schedule didn’t always reflect it, he was still holding meetings and working throughout the day, sources said. Some meetings that otherwise would have gone unlisted have begun to show up on the public schedule, including closed-door sessions with Cabinet officials, executives and outside visitors.

When asked about the changes to the schedule, the White House provided a week’s worth of his private daily schedule, detailing meetings and phone calls that took place between January 5 and January 9, often from early morning until late in the evening.

In total, the private calendar included 61 phone calls, 67 meetings and several other events. While names were removed, the calls included foreign leaders, CEOs, media personalities, lawmakers and members of his administration, as well as calls with his family.

The earliest day of the week began at 7:15 a.m., with calls to family, an “external stakeholder” and a head of state. Other days began later, closer to 11 a.m. Most of the days stretched past 7 p.m., according to the schedules.

It’s not the first time Trump, who is sensitive to the allegation he isn’t constantly working, has dictated how his public schedule should appear. As his first term wound down in 2021 — and as he went to lengths to overturn the previous November’s election results — Trump personally dictated a paragraph that would appear on the daily guidance for several weeks.

“President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening,” it read. “He will make many calls and have many meetings.”

While some allies have suggested it is not necessary for the president to prove to the public he is working, Trump himself has bristled at any suggestion he’s slowed down. He has given interviews to multiple outlets that inquired about his health, and frequently compares his energy levels to his predecessor Joe Biden, who Trump says is the “worst thing that ever happened to old people.”

“No President in American history has worked harder or accomplished more for our country than President Trump has during his first historic year in office — despite near-constant fake-news coverage from the failing liberal media,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to CNN that also attacked the media. “It is a fact the public’s trust in the mainstream media has fallen to an all-time low.”

‘We’re not promoting’: Trump’s growing frustrations with his coverage

Trump’s age is one of many issues on which the president has privately complained recently that he’s been treated unfairly by the media, according to people who have heard his complaints. While these claims of media ill-treatment are nothing new for Trump, sources close to the president noted his frustration has seemed to grow as he has griped that some of what he considers his greatest accomplishments over the past year are not getting enough positive coverage.

In mid-August, Trump grew irate departing Alaska as he watched coverage of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on FOX News, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. While a reporter noted that it appeared the president had been “steamrolled” by the Russian leader, Trump blew up— ranting that he would make a call to get this reporter fired, the sources said.

The president lamented that despite being on the verge of a peace deal, this was the kind of coverage that he had to deal with. A peace deal to end the war in Ukraine has still not materialized.

Over the last month, Republican lawmakers and allies of the president communicated concerns to the White House over the way the immigration crackdown was playing out, sources briefed on the conversations told CNN. A spate of polls showed Americans didn’t support the tactics Trump’s Immigration and Custom Enforcement were using across the country and were growing tired of the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.

Trump, briefed on the concerns, blamed the messaging and media bias, not the strategy itself. He complained that the Department of Homeland Security wasn’t doing enough to promote the agenda. One White House official insisted this was not directed at any one individual.

The president argued that Americans couldn’t be unhappy with the agenda if they understood it — and in particular that he was getting “the most dangerous” criminals off the street. Trump, who has always believed he is his own best messenger, decided to take matters into his own hands.

Addressing reporters during a rare and impromptu briefing at the White House last week, Trump, at times sounding exasperated, thumbed through mugshots of individuals arrested in his immigration crackdown, highlighting their alleged crimes.

His message was clear that while there might be some issues in the enforcement tactics, ICE is necessary to follow through on his agenda of deporting the most dangerous criminals to their home country. A week later, after a second individual in Minneapolis was shot dead by federal officers, Trump shook up the team leading deportation efforts in the city.

Perhaps no issue, however, has irked the president more than the economy. He has written off concerns about “affordability” as a scheme by Democrats to damage him politically. And he’s questioned why so many Americans feel negative about their financial health, if economic indicators and the stock market are positive.

“Maybe I have bad public relations people,” he said from the White House lectern last week. “I think we’re doing a much better job than we’re able to promote. We’re not promoting.”

“It’s one of the reasons I’m doing this news conference,” he explained.

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