'Low energy' Trump ducking press as impeachment hearings surge onward: report

White House reporters waiting to hear directly from President Donald Trump on a variety of subjects are being forced to get their scoops like anyone else in the U.S. -- by reading the president's Twitter account as he has gone missing in action since Monday, reports Roll Call.

According to the report, since the president held one of his so-called "chopper talks" on Monday -- where he takes questions from White House correspondents as a noisy presidential helicopter makes questions and answers hard to hear -- the president has made himself unavailable before, and immediately, after the House voted to proceed with public impeachment hearings.

According to Roll Call, "other than brief remarks over the loud engines of Air Force One on Monday morning, a president who has effectively counterprogrammed negative media coverage, questionable policy moves, bitter West Wing staff departures and even the opening weeks of an impeachment has retreated from reporters’ questions. Frequently, the president speaks to journalists during planned and impromptu question-and-answer sessions in the Oval Office and other spots around the White House. Not so this week."

According to the report, unless the president calls a surprise press conference, the next time the president is expected to be seen is when he leaves for a campaign rally in Mississippi late Friday -- if he chooses to stop and talk at all.

With no public events listed on the President's schedule for Thursday -- and with Trump not rushing immediately before the cameras to attack the Democrats after the vote -- one political analyst said it was a sign Trump may be wearing down.

Adopting the president's own language, James Manley, who advised the Clintons suggested, “It’s almost like he is low energy these days."

Roll Call pithily added, "A White House official did not respond to an inquiry about just what the president has been up to this week while not answering reporters’ questions, as he so often does."

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