Katy Tur: Trump “Doing Much More Than Certainly Joe Biden Did,” “He Is Very Much Still Engaged”
MS NOW host Katy Tur discussed President Donald Trump’s physical agility relative to former President Joe Biden on “The Daily Beast Podcast” with host Joanna Coles.
JOANNA COLES, DAILY BEAST: I mean, in his first term, when you were following him, he would frequently single you out. You wrote a fantastic book about this, “nbelievable.” Where it was a memoir of your covering him for what, 515 days? KATY TUR: 510 days. COLES: 510 days. I was five days off. That’s not bad. TUR: Every once in a while I pick it up and I just flip to a random page. And it is, it’s a good book. It’s a really good book about a moment in time that does not still to this date feel real. And yet here we are 10 years later. COLES: So here we are 10 years later. He used to pick on you and call you “Liddle Katie.” Today he’s picked on a different Katie, Katie Rogers of the New York Times, who’s written or co-written a long piece about his flagging energy, I think, and his work habits. TUR: Aging in the White House is what they’ve called it. COLES: Aging in the White House. TUR: Isn’t it interesting that the New York Times has delved into this. There was so much hand-wringing over approaching it during the Biden years, and they got so much flack for it. And there was a question of when is somebody going to really tackle Donald Trump’s slowing down? Because you can see it. I mean, you could see it during the campaign even. I was talking to Maggie Haberman about this. He is different than he was. He doesn’t have the same amount of energy. He’s not as coherent as he used to be. He’s always been not entirely coherent, but it’s different now. He’s slower. His speech is slower. You can see him falling asleep sometimes or appearing to fall asleep in the Oval Office or at, I think it was a national prayer breakfast. COLES: Well, he fell asleep when Dr. Oz was in the office and the poor man who’d come to talk about GLP-1s reducing in price collapse,d and literally his legs were up in the air, and Donald Trump was sort of standing there in a daze. But earlier in that press conference, he’d been asleep. TUR: But then earlier in the year, during the beginning of the administration, when he was at the National Cathedral in D.C., I forgot what the event was for, but I believe the priest, it wasn’t the National Prayer Breakfast. The priest was admonishing the administration for its treatment of immigrants. Anyway, during that sermon, he appeared to be falling asleep there, too. He’s different. I mean, he’s what? He’s 79 years old. He’s about to be 80. Anybody at that age is going to start slowing down. COLES: So were you surprised that The Times suggested that his day now starts at midday? That it’s basically he’s working hours are from midday to five? TUR: No. I mean, in the first administration, he pushed it back to 10 or even sometimes even later in the afternoon. He had executive time. That became a big point of jokes. What’s he doing during his executive time? He’s watching television. COLES: Right. He’s probably watching you. TUR: No, he’s watching all the networks. I think he has them all in his dining room or in the residence. Remember when FOX & Friends could tell he was watching because there was one light on in the White House? They would monitor one window and that one window with the light on, they would call him out and say, Donald, I know you’re watching, call in. COLES: Oh, how funny, I didn’t know that. And he — I remember him calling in. TUR: Yeah, but he would be up at those hours calling in. We’re not seeing that quite as much. I think part of it is, yes, he is slowing down. Yes, there are questions about his cognitive ability. Sometimes he slurs his words. Sometimes his speeches make even less sense than they used to. There’s a lot of chatter and gossip online over some physical things like the dragging of the leg, the bruise on his hand, the swelling of his ankles. I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what any of those things add up to. But he is 79. COLES: And also, if you saw them in a relative, you would be concerned. TUR: I would say are you OK? Anything going on? Right. What’s up with your hand? Why is it a bruise? COLES: And he claims that the bruises are to do with the fact that she shakes hands so much. TUR: And he’s on aspirin. And listen, I’m on aspirin every day. And I’ve got a bruise on my hand. COLES: Why are you on aspirin every day? TUR: I’ve got a family history of heart disease. So I’m on aspirin every day. COLES: OK. TUR: But would you like to know more? COLES: No, but I’m curious. You know, should we all be on aspirin every day? COLES: But so there is some validity to that. I can’t tell you how it adds up with. Again, I’m not a doctor, but I can’t tell you how it adds up with the swelling of the ankles or the dragging of the leg or the falling asleep in the Oval Office. But, you know, this is it’s a new thing for us to have presidents who are this old. We had Biden and now we have Trump. Biden was a few years older. He really started to decline in the last few years. He was starting to decline. So what happens with Donald Trump? Is this just the beginning of a precipitous slope down in terms of his health? I don’t know. But, again, he’s 79. COLES: Is Trump the new Biden? TUR: We’re going to have to see. There was Shane Gillis, the comedian who does a truly brilliant Trump impression, was saying on one of the Bro Podcasts, that’s the best way I can describe them, that I think he used the term Trump has Biden brains or he’s getting close to Biden. COLES: He’s got Biden brain. TUR: Yeah. So, I mean, the narrative is bubbling. COLES: Well, and also because he’s so visible, we can see it all the time. I mean, Biden didn’t do as many press conferences. TUR: No. COLES: Donald Trump loves a press conference. He loves the center of attention. But the trouble is all our attention is on him. So we are watching this, you know, micro moment by micro moment. TUR: I mean, when he doesn’t appear on camera for a day or two days or three days, everybody starts to freak out and wonder if he’s died. COLES: Yeah. TUR: Remember that earlier in the year? COLES: Totally. And he came out and said, I haven’t died, I’m still here. TUR: But I mean, I think not to be not to get on the bandwagon and to push back a little bit. He is doing much more than certainly Joe Biden did. He is out there in a way that past presidents haven’t even been out there. He does give access. He’s constantly on television. So, I mean, he might be slowing down for him and slowing down because he’s getting up there in age, but he is still very much mobile. I mean, he’s doing overseas travel. He’s coming back. He’s handing out Halloween candy. Sometimes these trips are one day. I mean, he is very much still engaged. He’s not doing the same amount of travel that he used to. I mean, the domestic travel has certainly declined. He’s not doing those rallies. He’s not standing in front of a crowd for an hour, two hours, three hours in, you know, Grand Rapids, Michigan any longer. And I think that’s telling. But this has got to be relative to him and not necessarily relative to Joe Biden. I went to the Christmas party during the Biden years, and he came out at like eight o’clock, and he gave a speech to the assembled room of journalists. And you could not understand a word he was saying. COLES: Right. TUR: It’s different.








