For someone who’s at war with the media, Donald Trump sure looks at a lot of it.
The US president turns on cable TV news (paywall) as soon as he wakes up in the morning, before 6am Washington time. He spends breakfast looking over the morning editions of the New York Times, The New York Post, and, more recently, the Washington Post. And he upgraded the TV (paywall) in his private dining room so he could catch up on the afternoon news during lunch. (Whether that’s the best way for him to stay informed, is still up for debate.)
It’s the morning news shows on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News Channel that capture Trump’s attention the most, his tweets suggest.
Sixty-four percent of the tweets Trump sent as president, 70 tweets in all, were posted between 6-9am EST, when his most-talked about cable news shows—Morning Joe and Fox and Friends, as well as CNN’s New Day—were on the air, according to analysis by Axios.
The publication examined the tweets Trump sent as president, between the inauguration on Jan. 20 and yesterday, Feb. 15. It looked specifically at the 109 tweets sent from Android devices, as those were the ones most likely to come from the president himself, who reportedly still uses his Samsung Galaxy S3 for his personal account—separate from his official @POTUS account.
At least 15% of Trump’s tweets as president, overall, were directly in response to segments on cable or network news, Axios found. And 29 of his tweets, more than a quarter of all the tweets he’s sent as president, mentioned the media, either by naming specific news outlets, calling out TV ratings, or claiming ”FAKE NEWS.”
Many of Trump’s morning tweets, which were captured by Trump Twitter Archive, seemed to stem from segments that aired during the morning news programs. He usually praised, or more often disparaged, the coverage of him and his administration.
Even before Trump was sworn in, he reportedly sent the bulk of his tweets during that three-hour time slot. He’s tweeted during these morning shows so frequently that corporations and lobbyists, including HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, are buying ad time during these shows to get the president’s attention.
Surprisingly, Trump hasn’t had as much to say during The O’Reilly Factor, another program he’s been known to watch. But he has appeared to respond to some segments on the show. And he touted his Feb. 4 appearance on the program.
There is one time of day when Trump usually stays off Twitter, Axios found: 9am to 6pm EST during workdays. That’s probably because he’s busy running the country.