Donald Trump talks so much that even his White House stenographers are struggling to keep up

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters at the White House on Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP)
Short Url
Updated 31 January 2025
Follow

Donald Trump talks so much that even his White House stenographers are struggling to keep up

  • He’s been speaking nearly nonstop since starting his second term, drowning out dissenting voices and leaving his opponents struggling to be heard
  • Trump’s commentary remains laden with falsehoods, but now that he is back in the presidency, it’s hard to ignore him
  • Kate Berner, who worked on Biden’s communications staff, said Trump’s constant talking helps keep his adversaries off balance

WASHINGTON: The White House stenographers have a problem. Donald Trump is talking so much, the people responsible for transcribing his public remarks are struggling to keep up with all the words.
There were more than 22,000 on Inauguration Day, then another 17,000 when Trump visited disaster sites in North Carolina and California. It’s enough to strain the ears and fingers of even the most dedicated stenographer, especially after four years of Joe Biden’s relative quiet.
Now there are discussions about hiring additional staff to keep up with the workload, according to people with knowledge of the conversations who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal matters.
The flood of words is one of the most visible — or audible — shifts from Biden to Trump, who craves the spotlight and understands better than most politicians that attention is a form of power. He’s been speaking nearly nonstop since starting his second term, drowning out dissenting voices and leaving his opponents struggling to be heard.
Take Wednesday, for example. During a signing ceremony for legislation to accelerate deportations, Trump, a Republican, talked up his accomplishments, claimed Hamas was using US-funded condoms to make bombs in Gaza, defended his administration’s efforts to freeze federal spending and reduce the government workforce, veered through descriptions of migrant violence and made the surprise announcement that Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would be used as a detention center for people who are in the US illegally.
Trump’s commentary remains laden with falsehoods, including baseless allegations about voter fraud and assertions that California water policies worsened the recent wildfires. Sometimes he speaks off the cuff about consequential geopolitical matters, such as a recent suggestion that Palestinians should be displaced from Gaza while the enclave is rebuilt. It can be hard to know when to take him seriously, like when he muses about serving a third term, which the US Constitution does not allow.
But now that Trump is back in the presidency, it’s hard to ignore him.
“He’s dictating the news on his terms,” said Michael LaRosa, who worked as a television producer before serving as a spokesperson for former first lady Jill Biden. “He’s become America’s assignment editor.”

INNUMBERS

24,259 words used by Joe Biden when he spent 2 hours and 36 minutes talking on camera in his first week in office in 2020

81,235 words spewed by Donald Trump as he spoke for nearly 7 hours and 44 minutes last week. That’s longer than watching the original “Star Wars” trilogy back-to-back-to-back, and more words than “Macbeth,” “Hamlet” and “Richard III” combined

(Source: Factba.se.)

Most presidents try to start their terms with a bang, seizing the moment when their influence could be at its peak. However, Trump is in a different league.
Biden, a Democrat, spent 2 hours and 36 minutes talking on camera and used 24,259 words in his first week in office four years ago, according to numbers generated by Factba.se.
Trump’s comparable stats: nearly 7 hours and 44 minutes and 81,235 words last week. That’s longer than watching the original “Star Wars” trilogy back-to-back-to-back, and more words than “Macbeth,” “Hamlet” and “Richard III” combined.
It’s also much more than when Trump took office for his first term eight years ago. Back then, he was only on camera talking for 3 hours and 41 minutes and spoke 33,571 words.
Trump has spent decades practicing the best ways to get people to pay attention to him. As a New York businessman, he fed stories to gossip columnists, added gold plating to buildings and slapped his name on every product that he sold. His efforts reached an apex with “The Apprentice,” the reality television show that beamed him into American living rooms.
“One of the things that has given him the advantage is that he thinks like an executive producer,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican communications strategist. “He’s constantly programming the next hour and trying to keep his audience engaged.”
A sign of what was to come arrived shortly after Trump was sworn in. He delivered an inaugural address and then promptly gave more remarks to supporters that were even longer than his speech. And then he spoke at a downtown arena, where people had gathered for a rally, and later he parried questions from reporters for nearly an hour in the Oval Office while signing executive orders.
At one point, he turned to Fox News Channel’s Peter Doocy.
“Does Biden ever do news conferences like this?” Trump said. “How many news conferences, Peter, has he done like this?”
“Like this?” Doocy responded.
“None,” Trump said, answering his own question.
On Friday, Trump presented a tour de force of talking, demonstrating that he’s far more willing to put himself in unscripted situations than Biden was.
He spoke with reporters while leaving the White House in the morning. He talked to them again after landing in North Carolina, then again at a briefing on the recovery from Hurricane Helene, and then again while meeting with victims of the storm.
Trump flew that afternoon to Los Angeles, where he conversed with local officials about the recent wildfires. Before boarding Air Force One to leave the city in the evening, he answered more questions from reporters on the tarmac.
As his travels continued over the weekend, Trump spoke to reporters twice at the back of Air Force One — as often as Biden did for his entire term.
“Transparency is back!” wrote longtime aide Margo Martin on social media.
That’s not the word that Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, would use.
“Being accessible and being transparent are two different things,” she said.
Sometimes more talking doesn’t produce more clarity. One afternoon, Trump told reporters that there were “no surprises” when Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski decided to oppose Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon. The next morning, Trump said he was “very surprised” by their votes.
Jamieson worries that the frenzied pace will exhaust people.
“More people will simply check out,” she said. “And that’s a problem. An informed citizenry is an engaged citizenry.”
Kate Berner, who worked on Biden’s communications staff, said Trump’s constant talking helps keep his adversaries off balance.
“By doing so much and saying so much, it is hard for people who oppose him to organize,” she said. “And it is hard for any one thing to take hold.”
But there’s also a risk for Trump, Berner said. If he’s not careful, she said, he could once again start “wearing out his welcome with the American people.”


Malaysia jails Israeli for seven years on firearms offenses 

Updated 3 sec ago
Follow

Malaysia jails Israeli for seven years on firearms offenses 

  • Authorities said Avitan claimed to be in Malaysia to hunt down another Israeli citizen over a family dispute
KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian court sentenced an Israeli man to seven years in prison on Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to carrying six guns and dozens of bullets, his lawyer said.
Shalom Avitan, 39, was arrested last March at a hotel in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, and later charged with unauthorized trafficking and possession of firearms, while a married Malaysian couple was charged with supplying him the weapons.
Authorities said Avitan claimed to be in Malaysia to hunt down another Israeli citizen over a family dispute.
The two countries do not have diplomatic relations, and police investigated his motives and the possibility that he was part of an Israeli crime ring or a spy.
Avitan arrived from the United Arab Emirates on March 12 last year traveling on a French passport, officials said.
He was detained by police at a Kuala Lumpur hotel with the bag of weapons on March 27 and produced an Israeli passport when questioned, they added.
On Wednesday, the Kuala Lumpur sessions court accepted Avitan’s guilty plea and ordered his seven-year sentence to run from the date of his arrest on March 28 last year, his lawyer, Naran Singh, told Reuters.
Avitan will serve his sentence in the Kajang prison on the outskirts of the capital, the lawyer added.

France wants Europe cooperation on visas over expulsion of undocumented migrants

Updated 41 min 51 sec ago
Follow

France wants Europe cooperation on visas over expulsion of undocumented migrants

  • European countries to cooperate and start cutting back visas available to nationals of countries that refuse to take back illegal migrants expelled by Paris

Paris: France’s foreign minister said Wednesday that he wanted “all” European countries to cooperate and start cutting back visas available to nationals of countries that refuse to take back illegal migrants expelled by Paris.
Jean-Noel Barrot spoke after an Algerian-born man went on a stabbing rampage in the eastern French city of Mulhouse at the weekend, killing one person and wounding several others in what President Emmanuel Macron called an “Islamist terrorist act.”
The 37-year-old suspect was on a terrorism watch list and subject to a deportation order.
France had attempted to expel him multiple times, but Algeria refused to cooperate, French authorities say.
“If a country does not cooperate with the French authorities, I will propose that all European countries restrict the issuing of visas at the same time,” Barrot told broadcaster France 2.
“When we do it on a national level, it doesn’t work unfortunately,” he added.
But if foreign governments cooperate, the European Union could consider reducing customs tariffs for such countries, Barrot proposed.
“It is a particularly powerful lever,” he said.
French authorities are seeking to tighten immigration policies and border controls, in a move emblematic of the right-ward shift in French politics.
“If we want our migration policy to be as effective as possible, there are many things that will be much more effective if we do it at a European level,” he said.
Prime Minister Francois Bayrou was set later Wednesday to chair a meeting on immigration controls.
Bayrou has called for a national debate on immigration and what it means to be French, suggesting that immigrants were “flooding” France.


US and Ukraine near an economic deal with mineral rights but no security promise

Updated 26 February 2025
Follow

US and Ukraine near an economic deal with mineral rights but no security promise

  • Trump called it a big deal that could be worth a trillion dollars
  • Kyiv hopes that signing the agreement will ensure the continued flow of US military support that Ukraine urgently needs

KYIV: Ukraine and the US have reached an agreement on a framework for a broad economic deal that would include access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, three senior Ukrainian officials said Tuesday.
The officials, who were familiar with the matter, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. One of them said that Kyiv hopes that signing the agreement will ensure the continued flow of US military support that Ukraine urgently needs.
The agreement could be signed as early as Friday and plans are being drawn up for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to travel to Washington to meet President Donald Trump, according to one of the Ukrainian officials.
Another official said the agreement would provide an opportunity for Zelensky and Trump to discuss continued military aid to Ukraine, which is why Kyiv is eager to finalize the deal.
Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, said he’d heard that Zelensky was coming and added that “it’s okay with me, if he’d like to, and he would like to sign it together with me.”
Trump called it a big deal that could be worth a trillion dollars. “It could be whatever, but it’s rare earths and other things.”
According to one Ukrainian official, some technical details are still to be determined. However, the draft does not include a contentious Trump administration proposal to give the US $500 billion worth of profits from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as compensation for its wartime assistance to Kyiv.
Instead, the US and Ukraine would have joint ownership of a fund, and Ukraine would in the future contribute 50 percent of future proceeds from state-owned resources, including minerals, oil, and gas. One official said the deal had better terms of investments and another one said that Kyiv secured favorable amendments and viewed the outcome as “positive.”
The deal does not, however, include security guarantees. One official said that this would be something the two presidents would discuss when they meet.
The progress in negotiating the deal comes after Trump and Zelensky traded sharp rhetoric last week about their differences over the matter.
Zelensky said he balked at signing off on a deal that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed during a visit to Kyiv earlier this month, and the Ukrainian leader objected again days later during a meeting in Munich with Vice President JD Vance because the American proposal did not include security guarantees.
Trump then called Volodymyr Zelensky “a dictator without elections” and claimed his support among voters was near rock-bottom.
But the two sides made significant progress during a three-day visit to Ukraine last week by retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.
The idea was initially proposed last fall by Zelensky as part of his plan to strengthen Kyiv’s hand in future negotiations with Moscow.


South Korea births rose last year on surge in marriage

Updated 26 February 2025
Follow

South Korea births rose last year on surge in marriage

  • The fertility rate remains far below the 2.1 children needed to maintain South Korea’s population of 51 million

Seoul: The number of births in South Korea rose last year for the first time in more than a decade on the back of a rise in marriages, officials said on Wednesday, bucking a trend for a country battling a demographic crisis.
South Korea has one of the world’s longest life expectancies and lowest birth rates — a combination that presents a looming demographic challenge.
Seoul has poured billions of dollars into efforts to encourage women to have more children and maintain population stability.
The crude birth rate — the number of babies born per 1,000 people — was 4.7, interrupting a continuous downward trend since 2014, according to preliminary data from Statistics Korea.
And the fertility rate, or the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, was 0.75, “up 0.03 from 0.72 in 2023,” it said.
“The number of births in 2024 was 238,300, an increase of 8,300 (3.6 percent) from the previous year,” the report added.
Park Hyun-jeong, an official from Statistics Korea, attributed the rise to an increase in marriages as well as shifting demographics.
“The population has seen a significant increase in the number of people in their early 30s,” she told a press conference.
“This has had a major impact,” Park explained.
“Additionally, many marriages that were delayed due to Covid-19 have now taken place, and this upward trend continues.”
Park said the number of marriages last year had been the most since 1996 — “the highest on record.”
The average maternal age at childbirth in 2024 was 33.7 years, Seoul said, one of the highest in the world.
But the fertility rate remains far below the 2.1 children needed to maintain South Korea’s population of 51 million.
At current rates, the population will nearly halve to 26.8 million by 2100, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Experts say there are multiple reasons for the low birth rate, from high child-rearing costs and property prices to a notoriously competitive society that makes well-paid jobs difficult to secure.
The double burden for working mothers of managing the brunt of household chores and childcare while also maintaining their careers is another key factor, they say.
The South Korean government offers cash subsidies, babysitting services and support for infertility treatment.
But the number of births has until now continued to decline.
Neighbouring Japan is grappling with the same issue — it has the world’s second-oldest population after Monaco and the country’s relatively strict immigration rules mean it faces growing labor shortages.


Adnan Syed’s murder conviction still stands as he seeks sentence reduction in ‘Serial’ case

Updated 26 February 2025
Follow

Adnan Syed’s murder conviction still stands as he seeks sentence reduction in ‘Serial’ case

  • Syed has maintained his innocence from the beginning, but many questions remain unanswered even after the “Serial” podcast combed through the evidence, reexamined legal arguments and interviewed witnesses

BALTIMORE: Despite documented problems with the evidence against him and an earlier request from prosecutors to clear his record, Adnan Syed will remain a convicted murderer, according to court papers filed Tuesday night.
The decision from Baltimore prosecutors comes ahead of a scheduled hearing Wednesday morning where a judge will consider whether to reduce Syed’s sentence, but this means the conviction itself is no longer in question.
It is the latest wrinkle in an ongoing legal odyssey that garnered a massive following after being featured in the “Serial” podcast over a decade ago.
Syed’s attorneys recently filed the request for a sentence reduction under Maryland’s Juvenile Restoration Act, a relatively new state law that provides a potential pathway to release for people serving long prison terms for crimes committed when they were minors. That request is supported by prosecutors.
Meanwhile, Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates announced Tuesday that his office is withdrawing a previously filed motion to vacate Syed’s conviction in the 1999 killing of his high school ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, who was found strangled to death and buried in a makeshift grave.
“I did not make this decision lightly, but it is necessary to preserve the credibility of our office and maintain public trust in the justice system,” Bates said in a statement.
The original motion to vacate — which was filed by Bates’ predecessor Marilyn Mosby — won Syed his freedom in 2022. But his conviction was reinstated following a procedural challenge from Lee’s family. The Maryland Supreme Court ordered a redo of the conviction vacatur hearing after finding that the family didn’t receive adequate notice to attend in person.
Since the prosecutor’s office changed hands in the meantime, the decision of whether to withdraw the motion fell to Bates.
Instead of asking a judge to again consider Syed’s guilt or innocence, Bates chose a different path. He supported Syed’s motion for a reduced sentence — without addressing the underlying conviction.
Bates said that since his release in 2022, Syed has demonstrated he is a productive member of society whose continued freedom is “in the interest of justice.” He said the case “is precisely what legislators envisioned when they crafted the Juvenile Restoration Act.”
The legislation was passed amid growing consensus that such defendants are especially open to rehabilitation, partly because brain science shows cognitive development continues well beyond the teenage years. Syed was 17 when Lee was killed.
Now 43, he has been working at Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative and caring for aging relatives since his release, according to court filings. His father died in October after a long illness.
Bates was facing a Friday deadline to decide on the motion to vacate.
After reviewing the motion filed by his predecessor, Bates concluded that it contained “false and misleading statements that undermine the integrity of the judicial process,” he said in a statement Tuesday.
Attorneys for the victim’s family had argued that prosecutors should address the integrity of Syed’s conviction before the court considered reducing his sentence. Prosecutors “should not be allowed to duck the issue by hiding behind” his motion for a reduced sentence, attorneys wrote in a recent filing.
Syed has maintained his innocence from the beginning, but many questions remain unanswered even after the “Serial” podcast combed through the evidence, reexamined legal arguments and interviewed witnesses. The series debuted in 2014 and drew millions of listeners who became armchair detectives.
Rife with legal twists and turns, the case has recently pitted criminal justice reform efforts against the rights of crime victims and their families, whose voices are often at odds with a growing movement to acknowledge and correct systemic racism, police misconduct and prosecutorial missteps.
When prosecutors sought to vacate Syed’s conviction in 2022, they cited numerous problems with the case, including alternative suspects and unreliable evidence presented at trial. A judge agreed to vacate the conviction and free Syed. Prosecutors in Mosby’s office later chose not to refile charges after they said DNA testing excluded Syed as a suspect.
Even though the appellate courts reinstated his conviction, they allowed Syed to remain free while the case continued.