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Fox News host’s attack on Biden’s work schedule sparks brutal comparisons with Trump

Joe Biden
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

Fox News host Jesse Watters has found an unusual new way to criticise Joe Biden – apparently he isn’t doing enough work.

Despite the US president working on the passage of a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill and issuing a flurry of executive orders to overturn Trump-era policies in his first weeks in power, the right-wing commentator has claimed that Biden’s work schedule is failing to inspire people.

“The president hasn’t been working up a sweat. He calls lids early, he goes to bed early, he takes weekends off,” Watters said on his Fox News show.

“I see his schedule, it’s not inspiring.”

Of course, this could be a perfectly legitimate criticism of Biden’s presidency so far but the claim reeks of hypocrisy when taken alongside Fox News staunch support of Donald Trump’s administration.

The former president was renowned for his ability to spend hours of his day watching right-wing news, taking part in Twitter feuds and playing rounds of golf, when he could have been working…

In fact, despite Trump’s claim that he worked more hours than other presidents, there was clear evidence to suggest that this wasn’t the case…

For example, CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller told CNN in May 2020 that Trump had spent all or part of 248 days at a golf course during his first term, compared to just 98 rounds of golf played by Barack Obama at the same point in his presidency.

Trump’s schedule was also known for containing large amounts of unstructured “executive time” – periods, generally between 6am and 11am, which his allies claimed involved undisclosed work, but which could have easily been filled with hours of TV news.

The irony of a Fox News host complaining about Biden’s work schedule following their support for the previous administration was not lost on many Twitter users:

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