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

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)
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Updated 31 January 2025
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Donald Trump talks so much that even his White House stenographers are struggling to keep up

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.”


Germans start voting, polls suggest shift to right

Germans start voting, polls suggest shift to right
Updated 23 February 2025
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Germans start voting, polls suggest shift to right

Germans start voting, polls suggest shift to right
  • Frontrunner Friedrich Merz vows tough rightward shift if elected, to win back voters from the far-right anti-immigration Alternative for Germany
  • The AfD has basked in the glowing support lavished on it by Trump’s entourage, with billionaire Elon Musk touting it as the only party to “save Germany"

BERLIN: Germans were voting in a national election on Sunday that is expected to see Friedrich Merz’s conservatives regain power and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) score its best ever result as Europe’s ailing economic powerhouse lurches rightwards.

Merz’s CDU/CSU bloc has consistently led polls but is unlikely to win a majority given Germany’s fragmented political landscape, forcing it to sound out coalition partners.

Those negotiations are expected to be tricky after a campaign which exposed sharp divisions over migration and how to deal with the AfD in a country where far-right politics carries a particularly strong stigma due to its Nazi past.

That could leave unpopular Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a caretaker role for months, delaying urgently needed policies to revive Europe’s largest economy after two consecutive years of contraction and as companies struggle against global rivals.

It would also create a leadership vacuum in the heart of Europe even as it deals with a host of challenges, including US President Donald Trump’s threats of a trade war and attempts to fast-track a ceasefire deal for Ukraine without European involvement.

Germany, which has an export-oriented economy and long relied on the US for its security, is particularly vulnerable.

Germans are more pessimistic about their living standards now than at any time since the financial crisis in 2008. The percentage who say their situation is improving dropped sharply from 42 percent in 2023 to 27 percent in 2024, according to pollster Gallup.

Attitudes toward migration have also hardened, a profound shift in German public sentiment since its “Refugees Welcome” culture during Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015.

People walk past a campaign poster of Friedrich Merz, Christian Democratic Union party candidate for chancellor, in Potsdam, Germany, on Feb. 22, 2025. (Reuters)

Musk weighs in

Sunday’s election follows the collapse last November of Scholz’s coalition of his center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and pro-market Free Democrats (FDP) in a row over budget spending.

The SPD is headed for its worst result since World War Two.

The election campaign has been dominated by fierce exchanges over the perception that irregular immigration is out of control, fueled by a series of attacks in which the suspected perpetrators were of migrant origin.

It has also been overshadowed by the unusually forceful show of solidarity by members of the Trump administration – including Vice President JD Vance and tech billionaire Elon Musk – for the anti-migrant AfD, and broadsides against European leaders.

The 12-year-old AfD is on track to come in second place for the first time in a national election.

“I’m completely disappointed in politics, so maybe an alternative would be better,” said retired Berlin bookkeeper Ludmila Ballhorn, 76, who plans to vote AfD, adding she was struggling to live on her pension of 800 euros. “Rents and all other costs have soared.”

The AfD, however, is unlikely to govern for now as all mainstream parties have ruled out working with it, though some analysts believe it could pave the way for an AfD win in 2029.

Still, its strength, along with a small but significant vote share for the far-left and the decline of Germany’s big-tent parties, is increasingly complicating the formation of coalitions and governance.

Coalition options

EU allies are cautiously hopeful the elections might deliver a more coherent government able to help drive forward policy at home and in the bloc.

Some also hope Merz will reform the “debt brake,” a constitutional mechanism to limit government borrowing that critics say has strangled new investment.

The most likely outcome of this election, say analysts, is a tie-up of Merz’s conservative bloc of Christian Democrats (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) with the SPD, which is polling in third place in another uneasy “grand coalition.”

Polls, however, suggest another three-way coalition may be necessary if several small parties make the 5 percent threshold to enter parliament, complicating talks.

“A lot of my friends are likely going to vote for the conservatives because this government didn’t work so well and Merz’s international standing is quite good,” said Mike Zeller, 26, a civil servant.

“I just hope enough parties agree to a government so they can leave the AfD out.”


Rescuers search for eight trapped in India tunnel collapse

Rescuers search for eight trapped in India tunnel collapse
Updated 23 February 2025
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Rescuers search for eight trapped in India tunnel collapse

Rescuers search for eight trapped in India tunnel collapse
  • Irrigation tunnel collapsed in India’s Telangana state during construction on Saturday
  • Coordinated search and rescue effort underway, says India’s Irrigation Minister Reddy 

MUMBAI: Search teams in southern India were working Sunday to rescue eight workers believed to be trapped in an irrigation tunnel that collapsed during construction, officials said.

The accident occurred Saturday in the state of Telangana after a sudden inflow of water and soil caused a part of the tunnel to cave in.

Workers positioned near a boring machine managed to escape but another eight engineers and laborers near the entrance were believed to be stuck inside, the state’s ruling Congress party said in a statement on X.

“This is an unfortunate incident, but we are committed to bringing them out safely,” state irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy told reporters, adding that a coordinated search and rescue effort was underway.

India’s national disaster response force joined rescue efforts on Saturday night, with reports saying the tunnel’s ventilation system remained functional, which ensured the supply of oxygen to the trapped workers.

Media reports said that water needed to be pumped out and debris cleared before rescue teams could help locate and evacuate the trapped workers.

Accidents on large infrastructure construction sites are common in India.

In 2023, 41 Indian workers were rescued after a marathon 17-day engineering rescue operation helped pull them out of a partly collapsed Himalayan road tunnel in the northern state of Uttarakhand.


Afghan women’s radio station Radio Begum to resume broadcasts after Taliban lifts suspension

Afghan women’s radio station Radio Begum to resume broadcasts after Taliban lifts suspension
Updated 23 February 2025
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Afghan women’s radio station Radio Begum to resume broadcasts after Taliban lifts suspension

Afghan women’s radio station Radio Begum to resume broadcasts after Taliban lifts suspension
  • Radio Begum launched on International Women’s Day in March 2021
  • The station’s content is produced entirely by Afghan women

An Afghan women’s radio station will resume broadcasts after the Taliban suspended its operations, citing “unauthorized provision” of content to an overseas TV channel and improperly using its license.
Radio Begum launched on International Women’s Day in March 2021, five months before the Taliban seized power amid the chaotic withdrawal of US and NATO troops.
The station’s content is produced entirely by Afghan women. Its sister satellite channel, Begum TV, operates from France and broadcasts programs that cover the Afghan school curriculum from seventh to 12th grade. The Taliban have banned education for women and girls in the country beyond grade six.
In a statement issued Saturday night, the Taliban’s Information and Culture Ministry said Radio Begum had “repeatedly requested” to restart operations and that the suspension was lifted after the station made commitments to authorities.
The station pledged to conduct broadcasts “in accordance with the principles of journalism and the regulations of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and to avoid any violations in the future,” it added.
The ministry did not elaborate what those principles and regulations were. Radio Begum was not immediately available for comment.
Since their takeover, the Taliban have excluded women from education, many kinds of work, and public spaces. Journalists, especially women, have lost their jobs as the Taliban tighten their grip on the media.
In the 2024 press freedom index from Reporters without Borders, Afghanistan ranks 178 out of 180 countries. The year before that it ranked 152.
The Information Ministry did not initially identify the TV channel it alleged Radio Begum had been working with. But the Saturday statement mentioned collaboration with “foreign sanctioned media outlets.”


Beijing accuses Australia of ‘hyping’ China naval live fire drills

Beijing accuses Australia of ‘hyping’ China naval live fire drills
Updated 23 February 2025
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Beijing accuses Australia of ‘hyping’ China naval live fire drills

Beijing accuses Australia of ‘hyping’ China naval live fire drills
  • Beijing on Sunday said Canberra had “deliberately hyped” recent Chinese naval exercises near the Australian coast and confirmed its forces had used live fire in an incident

BEIJING: Beijing on Sunday said Canberra had “deliberately hyped” recent Chinese naval exercises near the Australian coast and confirmed its forces had used live fire in an incident that rattled Australian policymakers.
Authorities in Australia and close ally New Zealand have been monitoring three Chinese navy vessels spotted in recent days in international waters of the nearby Tasman Sea.
Canberra said Saturday it had not yet received a satisfactory explanation from Beijing for Friday’s drill, which saw the Chinese ships broadcast a live-fire warning that caused commercial planes to change course.
China’s defense ministry hit back on Sunday, saying the “relevant remarks of the Australian side are completely inconsistent with facts,” while also confirming the use of live ammunition.
“During the period, China organized live-fire training of naval guns toward the sea on the basis of repeatedly issuing prior safety notices,” Wu Qian, a spokesman for the defense ministry, said in a statement.
Wu added that China’s actions were “in full compliance with international law and international practices, with no impact on aviation flight safety.”
“Australia, while well aware of this, made unreasonable accusations against China and deliberately hyped it up,” said Wu, adding that Beijing was “astonished and strongly dissatisfied.”
The altercation threatens to complicate the relationship between Beijing and Canberra, which has gradually warmed under Australia’s Labor government.
Ties were derailed nearly a decade ago due to concerns in Australia about Chinese influence in local politics, followed by a 2018 ban on tech giant Huawei from Australia’s 5G network.
Earlier this month, Canberra rebuked Beijing for “unsafe” military conduct, accusing a Chinese fighter jet of dropping flares near an Australian air force plane patrolling the South China Sea.
China said at the time that the Australian plane had “deliberately intruded into the airspace around China’s Xisha Islands,” using Beijing’s name for the Paracel Islands, adding that its “measures to expel the aircraft were legitimate, legal, professional and restrained.”


Pakistan’s newest – and most expensive – Gwadar airport is a bit of a mystery

Pakistan’s newest – and most expensive – Gwadar airport is a bit of a mystery
Updated 23 February 2025
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Pakistan’s newest – and most expensive – Gwadar airport is a bit of a mystery

Pakistan’s newest – and most expensive – Gwadar airport is a bit of a mystery
  • Financed by China, it is anyone’s guess when New Gwadar International Airport will open for business
  • The airport is a stark contrast to the impoverished, restive southwestern Balochistan province around it

GWADAR, Pakistan: With no passengers and no planes, Pakistan’s newest and most expensive airport is a bit of a mystery. Entirely financed by China to the tune of $240 million, it’s anyone’s guess when New Gwadar International Airport will open for business.
Located in the coastal city of Gwadar and completed in October 2024, the airport is a stark contrast to the impoverished, restive southwestern Balochistan province around it.
For the past decade, China has poured money into Balochistan and Gwadar as part of a multibillion dollar project that connects its western Xinjiang province with the Arabian Sea, called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC.
Authorities have hailed it as transformational but there’s scant evidence of change in Gwadar. The city isn’t connected to the national grid – electricity comes from neighboring Iran or solar panels – and there isn’t enough clean water.
An airport with a 400,000 passenger capacity isn’t a priority for the city’s 90,000 people.
“This airport is not for Pakistan or Gwadar,” said Azeem Khalid, an international relations expert who specializes in Pakistan-China ties. “It is for China, so they can have secure access for their citizens to Gwadar and Balochistan.”
Caught between militants and the military
CPEC has catalyzed a decadeslong insurgency in resource-rich and strategically located Balochistan. Separatists, aggrieved by what they say is state exploitation at the expense of locals, are fighting for independence – targeting both Pakistani troops and Chinese workers in the province and elsewhere.
Members of Pakistan’s ethnic Baloch minority say they face discrimination by the government and are denied opportunities available elsewhere in the country, charges the government denies.
Pakistan, keen to protect China’s investments, has stepped up its military footprint in Gwadar to combat dissent. The city is a jumble of checkpoints, barbed wire, troops, barricades, and watchtowers. Roads close at any given time, several days a week, to permit the safe passage of Chinese workers and Pakistani VIPs.
Intelligence officers monitor journalists visiting Gwadar. The city’s fish market is deemed too sensitive for coverage.
Many local residents are frazzled.
“Nobody used to ask where we are going, what we are doing, and what is your name,” said 76-year-old Gwadar native Khuda Bakhsh Hashim. “We used to enjoy all-night picnics in the mountains or rural areas.”
“We are asked to prove our identity, who we are, where we have come from,” he added. “We are residents. Those who ask should identify themselves as to who they are.”
Hashim recalled memories, warm like the winter sunshine, of when Gwadar was part of Oman, not Pakistan, and was a stop for passenger ships heading to Mumbai. People didn’t go to bed hungry and men found work easily, he said. There was always something to eat and no shortage of drinking water.
But Gwadar’s water has dried up because of drought and unchecked exploitation. So has the work.
The government says CPEC has created some 2,000 local jobs but it’s not clear whom they mean by “local” – Baloch residents or Pakistanis from elsewhere in the country. Authorities did not elaborate.
People in Gwadar see few benefits from China’s presence
Gwadar is humble but charming, the food excellent and the locals chatty and welcoming with strangers. It gets busy during public holidays, especially the beaches.
Still, there is a perception that it’s dangerous or difficult to visit – only one commercial route operates out of Gwadar’s domestic airport, three times a week to Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, located at the other end of Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coastline.
There are no direct flights to Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta, hundreds of miles inland, or the national capital of Islamabad, even further north. A scenic coastal highway has few facilities.
Since the Baloch insurgency first erupted five decades ago, thousands have gone missing in the province – anyone who speaks up against exploitation or oppression can be detained, suspected of connections with armed groups, the locals say.
People are on edge; activists claim there are forced disappearances and torture, which the government denies.
Hashim wants CPEC to succeed so that locals, especially young people, find jobs, hope and purpose. But that hasn’t happened.
“When someone has something to eat, then why would he choose to go on the wrong path,” he said. “It is not a good thing to upset people.”
Militant violence declined in Balochistan after a 2014 government counterinsurgency and plateaued toward the end of that decade, according to Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies.
Attacks picked up after 2021 and have climbed steadily since. Militant groups, especially the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, were emboldened by the Pakistani Taliban ending a ceasefire with the government in November 2022.
An inauguration delayed
Security concerns delayed the inauguration of the international airport. There were fears the area’s mountains – and their proximity to the airport – could be the ideal launchpad for an attack.
Instead, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang hosted a virtual ceremony. The inaugural flight was off limits to the media and public.
Abdul Ghafoor Hoth, district president of the Balochistan Awami Party, said not a single resident of Gwadar was hired to work at the airport, “not even as a watchman.”
“Forget the other jobs, how many Baloch people are at this port that was built for CPEC,” he asked.
In December, Hoth organized daily protests over living conditions in Gwadar. The protests stopped 47 days later, once authorities pledged to meet the locals’ demands, including better access to electricity and water.
No progress has been made on implementing those demands since then.
Without local labor, goods or services, there can be no trickle-down benefit from CPEC, said international relations expert Khalid. As Chinese money came to Gwadar, so did a heavy-handed security apparatus that created barriers and deepened mistrust.
“The Pakistani government is not willing to give anything to the Baloch people, and the Baloch are not willing to take anything from the government,” said Khalid.