One day in the life of Donald Trump

In November 2016, Donald Trump, a well-known real estate entrepreneur, was elected president of the United States, much to the surprise of the whole world, and a good half of Americans. His actions and words are closely followed by all the world's media, literally sorting them out by atoms and building all sorts of theories.

A year has passed since then. Donald Trump seems to have settled down with his wife Melania and children in the White House. It is all the more interesting how the president's day begins and what things are filled with. Journalists of The New York Times interviewed 60 people from the president's inner circle and reconstructed one day from his life.

President Trump wakes up every morning around 5:30 and turns on the TV in the bedroom of the White House. He switches to the CNN news channel, then to Fox & Friends for inspiration, sometimes watches the Morning Joe show on MSNBC, which, according to friends, charges him for the whole day.

Full of energy and enthusiasm, he grabs his iPhone. Sometimes he tweets in bed, sometimes on his way to the lavishly decorated Contract Room, where he comes even in his pajamas and takes official and unofficial calls.

At the end of his year in the White House, Trump is reconsidering his opinion about what it means to be president. He still sees this post as a trophy after a stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, which needs to be defended every second, and Twitter is his Excalibur. Despite his sometimes defiant behavior, Trump does not see himself as a titan dominating the world stage, rather as a maligned outsider who has to fight to be taken seriously. At least 60 people from his entourage say so: advisers, colleagues, friends and members of Congress.

For other presidents, every day is a new test of how to govern the country. For Mr. Trump, it is an endless struggle for himself. He still casts doubt on last year's election, convinced that Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the election is actually a conspiracy concocted to delegitimize his election.

People from his entourage estimated that the president spends at least four hours a day (sometimes twice as much) in front of the TV, sometimes with the sound turned off. Newscasts are a battlefield for him. According to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, it seems to the president that everyone is trying to question the election results, and liberals and the media are allegedly trying to destroy him.

Retired Marine General John F. Kennedy was appointed head of the White House Staff . Kelly, who is trying with varying success to establish strict discipline in the White House. Previously, there were crowds of aides and visitors in the Oval Office, but Kelly stopped these endless streams of people. Trump, accustomed to managing his financial empire like a dictator, suddenly made concessions with the chief of staff, even trying to earn his approval. He calls Kelly twelve times a day to clarify his schedule or ask for advice on an important issue.

The retired general, in turn, tries to load the president as much as possible and reduce the amount of free time so that he writes his tweets less. But sometimes Trump manages to break out of Kelly's control.

Throughout the year, the president's entourage was convinced that there was some kind of strategy behind Trump's actions. However, in fact there is no strategy, not even a plan, but only impulses, emotions and obsessions.

Nevertheless, the president rarely, but tries to get someone's approval before posting something on Twitter. According to one of the advisers, in June, Trump suddenly started calling friends, saying that he had found the perfect tweet to neutralize the situation around the Russian investigation. He wanted to call it a witch hunt, but his friends weren't impressed.

The source of inspiration for the president's tweets is TV. No one touches the remote control except Mr. Trump and his technical staff. During meetings, a 60-inch screen can work without sound, but the president monitors the headlines with one eye. What he misses, he later looks through thanks to the Super TiVo system, which records cable news.

Trump shares his thoughts from what he saw with everyone in the room, even with the maid who brought him lunch or a can of diet Coke (the president drinks up to 12 servings of soda a day).

However, in public, Mr. Trump hides his love for television in every possible way, fearing that he will be accused of neglecting the duties of the head of state. During a recent visit to Asia, the president, to the bewilderment of his supporters, said that he doesn't watch much TV because he has no time, because he works with documents.

Donald Trump is the most talked about person on the planet and still still enjoys seeing his name in the headlines. One of the former advisers said that one day after two or three days of calm, Trump became nervous and could not bear the fact that there was not a single mention of him in the news.

The president likes the image of an invulnerable "iron man", and he tries to stick to it. However, sometimes the mask of inaccessibility falls and you can see what exactly touches the strings of the president's soul. For example, he talks to the children of White House staff in a much softer tone than usual in public. And it was he who insisted on inviting the children of the members of the journalism pool to the Halloween celebration at the White House this fall.

And during a meeting with Republican senators, Trump extremely emotionally discussed the problems of the opioid crisis and the danger of addiction, recalling how his brother struggled with alcoholism. Then he looked around the audience and playfully asked: "Aren't you glad I don't drink?"

According to a close circle, it is difficult for Trump to come to terms with the fact that his unrealistic expectations from the authorities have not been met. He represented a kind of popular image of imperial rule, and not the miserable reality where he has to reckon with the other two branches of government.

Perhaps, at a fundamental level, the president will not change, but he has rethought what it means to be the head of the country, and no longer unceremoniously gives orders right and left. In the first months of the presidential term, Trump barked in a commanding tone at senators, and nothing good came of it. Someone replied that he did not work for him, and Senator Mitch McConnell asked him not to interrupt during the report.

So it looks like Trump has learned his lesson. He began to delve into the work of Congress, pays great attention to daily briefings with the director of the CIA, and the problem of North Korea worries him much more than you might think from his bullying tweets.

On weekends, Donald Trump relaxes on the golf course. And on weekdays, his main way to blow off steam is to have dinner at the White House residence with invited people, a list of whom is carefully prepared by the vigilant Mr. Kelly. Dinner starts at half past six or seven in the evening.

"I can invite anyone, and they will come," the president shared with admiration with an old friend at the very beginning of the term.

Trump loves to gossip, eating a perfectly fried steak or salad with Roquefort sauce and bacon slices, and finishing with a generous portion of ice cream. He also likes to arrange tours of the White House for guests, with pleasure showing the restrooms, Lincoln's bedroom and Truman's balcony.

After the guests leave, the president picks up the TV remote control again. At such an hour, he no longer tweets, because most of the news that he could react to is on repeat. The president watches Fox News or sometimes switches to the hated CNN.

In between, he calls old friends or former colleagues, and again there are topics about Russia, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, about the "lying" media. In the end, the president goes to bed to sleep for five or six hours. And then the TV will start humming again, Donald Trump will reach for his phone, and the fight will begin again.