Donald Trump spends up to eight hours a day watching TV, according to NYT profile of President

Donald Trump spends as much as eight hours a day watching television, according to a profile of the US President published in the New York Times revealing more about the way he consumes media.

Sources told the newspaper that they estimate he watches at least four hours of television a day “and sometimes as much as twice that” with news shows on Fox, CNN and MSNBC part of his media diet.

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Trump did not respond to the claims directly, but in a speech made on a trip to Asia after they were put to him, he said he did not watch too much television.

“I know they like to say — 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, primarily because of documents. I’m reading documents a lot,” he said.

Republican senator Lindsey Graham told the newspaper that Trump “believes passionately that the liberal left and the media are out to destroy him” while those close to Trump said he mutes the television but keeps an eye on the screen’s rolling headline ticker during meetings.

Trump has famously used Twitter to call out media companies – particular the New York Times – reporters and news stories as “fake news”.

The report also noted Trump as an “avid newspaper reader who still marks up a half-dozen papers with comments in black Sharpie pen” while CNN is a “hate-watch”.

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And he relies on the catch-up service TIVO to watch anything in the evening that he may have missed during the day.

According to research from Ofcom, the average adult in the UK spends three hours and 51 minutes each day watching TV.