Trump denies watching four to eight hours of TV a day

Washington: President Donald Trump denied a New York Times story on his daily White House life that says he watches up to eight hours of cable TV news a day.

“Another false story, this time in the Failing @nytimes, that I watch 4-8 hours of television a day – Wrong!” the US president wrote on Twitter.

“Also, I seldom, if ever, watch CNN or MSNBC, both of which I consider Fake News,” he added.

Trump then described CNN news anchor Don Lemon as a person “I once called the ‘dumbest man on television!’”

A lengthy New York Times story over the weekend, citing sources close to the president, says that Trump gets up early in the morning and immediately tunes into the cable TV news and commentary shows.

The president often fires off early morning tweets that react to cable TV news stories.

Trump, 71, is sensitive to criticism on the subject.

“I do not watch much television,” Trump told reporters on his recent trip to Vietnam.

“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.”

Later in the trip he complained that the only US cable TV news available to watch in the Philippines was CNN. — AFP