Trump says he's the 'hardest working president in history' as report says he's watching TV and eating fries all day

We've been massively spoilt for choice recently when it comes to ridiculous quotes from the president of the United States.

But just days after saying it might be a good plan to inject bleach, he's come out with another iconic line.

On Twitter, Trump has said he's the hardest working president in history. Behold... the tweet:

Trump's slightly insecure tweet follows a lengthy New York Timesreport which claims that during the pandemic he has been holed up in the residential wing of the White House and passes the majority of his hours anxiously watching TV coverage to see how his leadership is being received. Pretty relatable, right?

In response, the White House has released a story to the New York Postrefuting all the claims made in the piece, and asserting that Trump is so busy, he sometimes skips lunch.

Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff told the Post:

I can tell you that he will go back in and have a lunch just off the Oval Office and more times than not it is interrupted by several phone calls. If he gets more than 10 minutes of time in a given day I haven’t seen in the five weeks I’ve been here.

Another official went one further, claiming sometimes Trump doesn’t eat lunch, full stop.

“There are times when lunch isn’t even a thought,” the aide said. “A lot of time there’s either no time for lunch or there is 10 minutes for lunch”.

As for the TV claim, they say watching coverage is perfectly reasonable for the head of state to do. An official said:

How else are we going to know what’s being said and what’s being reported out there?

The Postalso said they’d seen data on presidential phone calls which apparently prove his packed schedule (a detail not contested by the Timesfeature).

In the Timesreport that has riled the president so much, journalists spoke to “more than a dozen” administration officials and advisers who told them Trump is allegedly “isolated from the supporters, visitors, travel and golf that once entertained him”.

The latter will have hit Trump especially hard; in 2019 he spent one in five days on a golf course.

The Times also reported that Trump is surrounded by “comfort food” like French fries and Diet Coke and though he spends his days in meetings, briefings and on calls he is constantly fixated on news coverage about him, which he’s increasingly angered by.

Even the likes of Fox News, a former ally, are now criticising his handling of the crisis.

Trump, of course, responded furiously to the Times report, firing off a string of tweets defending his work ethic.

I work from early in the morning until late at night, haven’t left the White House in many months (except to launch Hospital Ship Comfort) in order to take care of Trade Deals, Military Rebuilding etc., and then I read a phony story in the failing@nytimes about my work schedule and eating habits, written by a third rate reporter who knows nothing about me. I will often be in the Oval Office late into the night & read & see that I am angrily eating a hamburger & Diet Coke in my bedroom. People with me are always stunned. Anything to demean!

In fact, the Times story did not detail Trump eating a hamburger and Diet Coke in his bedroom and supported the claims that he is both in the Oval Office late into the night and wakes early each morning.

However the report said this is so Trump can begin his “marathon” of viewing television coverage about him.

A bad case of square eyes imminent?