President Trump asks his staff to do things by scrawling in Sharpie on newspaper clippings

(Image credit: Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump is famously a Luddite, shying away from computers, email, and even phones. As a 21st century leader, though, that can lead to some odd ways of operating, Axios reports:

With an allergy to computers and phones, [President Trump] works the papers. With a black Sharpie in hand, he marks up the [New York] Times or other printed stories. When he wants action or response, he scrawls the staffers' names on that paper and either hands the clip to them in person, or has a staffer create a PDF of it — with handwritten commentary — and email it to them. An amazed senior adviser recently pulled out his phone to show us a string of the emailed PDFs, all demanding response. It was like something from the early 90s. Even when he gets worked up enough to tweet, Trump told us in our interview he will often simply dictate it, and let his staff hit "send" on Twitter. [Axios]

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.