Donald Trump may not, in fact, have spent hours as president watching the Gorilla Channel but he did watch TV for hours at a time in a room off the Oval Office, even on January 6 as his supporters attacked Congress and the republic was shaken.
Joe Biden, according to a new report, is not nearly so glued to the box – but he does have a tiny, secret TV.
According to Politico, in Biden’s Oval Office a “little television” sits behind the Resolute Desk, amid “picture frames, encased in a golden frame itself so as to be inconspicuous”.
The website added: “When there aren’t press cameras or dignitaries in there, the 10 or 12in screen is often turned on – and tuned to CNN.
“While Biden isn’t spending hours in his private dining room glued to a big screen as his predecessor was, several current and former White House officials [say] the president will keep an eye on his secret screen behind his desk and react to coverage during less formal meetings with staff.”
The Gorilla Channel story was an early, mischievous example of a common Trump tale, concerning his TV-centric habits.
As James Poniewozik wrote in his book Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television and the Fracturing of America: “The president’s staff tried, fruitlessly, to manage him by managing what TV he saw and limiting his ‘screen time’. (Steve Bannon, seeing his boss was mainlining up to eight hours of tube a day, asked, ‘Think what your brain would be like if you did that?’)”
Such stories began with Michael Wolff, who in his 2018 book Fire and Fury described the then president “in bed with a cheeseburger, watching his three screens and making phone calls”. The Gorilla Channel hoax was also a satire on Wolff’s book.
According to Politico, Biden sometimes echoes Trump by calling people he sees on TV, in the case of the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, letting him know “he enjoyed his description of [the Republican Wisconsin senator] Ron Johnson “having rocks in his head”.
Politico also contrasted Biden’s relationships with the media with those maintained by Trump, who saw the Fox News host Sean Hannity as an informal adviser. Biden, the site said, prefers the company and counsel of the New York Times columnists David Brooks and Thomas Friedman and Evan Osnos of the New Yorker.
Trump was notoriously reading-averse. Biden is given a daily “binder of national and local news clips and front pages, including from Black, Latino and AAPI-focused outlets”.
Politico also reported that Biden has visited the press cabin on Air Force One just once, after his predecessor’s frequent visits. Biden’s “off-the-record comments included complaints about his coverage”, it said.
“He has rarely griped publicly about any specific report, but some have gotten under his skin – including a story last summer by the New York Times’ Peter Baker about his age becoming ‘an uncomfortable issue’.”
At 80, Biden is the oldest president ever. This week he announced his candidacy for re-election. If successful, he will be 86 by the end of his second term. Trump, 76, remains his most likely opponent.
Biden, Politico said, “often grumbles privately that news coverage is too focused on his predecessor and other fleeting controversies and believes the media has failed to focus on the historic nature and real world impact of his legislative accomplishments.
“He also complains to staffers, especially those who oversee communications, [that] not enough people defend him on cable television, something those plotting his likely re-election campaign are hoping to remedy.”
