Or should I say doesn’t read.
President Trump is at once an enigma and the most easy-to-understand person on the planet. On one hand, he's constantly doing and saying insane and terrifying things that seemingly come out of nowhere and with seemingly no rhyme, reason, or regard for their geopolitical consequences. On the other, he's just an egomaniac whose entire decision-making process seems to come down to: "Do those people like Trump? Yes? Then Trump likes them. No? Then they're sad! Overrated! Losers!" Because of this push and pull between unpredictable and insanely predictable, it might help us prepare for how to deal with Trump if we understood more about how he views the world. And so via Axios, we have a report on what Trump watches and reads.
The major takeaway is that Trump is an egomaniac (that we knew) who's from a different era in more ways than just all the racism and sexism. He hardly uses the Internet (beyond Twitter), and even then often sends his tweets by dictating them to a staffer. His preferred newspaper is the New York Post, and he reads The New York Times and "skims The Wall Street Journal." (He's expected to add The Washington Post to that list now.) But mostly, he's obsessed with things written about him, of course. He watches Morning Joe every day, while mixing in a little Fox & Friends and CNN.
None of this is all that notable. What is notable?
He's not a book guy: In fact, some advisers say they don't recall seeing him read one or even talking about one beyond his own, "The Art of the Deal." And, as he told us, he's not one for long reports or detailed briefings. One page usually suffices. Bullet points are even better.
Okay, is it shocking that Donald Trump doesn't like books? Of course not. But that doesn't mean it's not horrifying. Even scarier is the idea that our president is "not one for long reports or detailed briefings." No wonder he disagrees with the intelligence community so often: He probably doesn't read beyond the first page of anything.
