Anything remotely related to US politics is almost impossible to satirise, if a news article came out saying this really happened, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

It’s come to the point where the onion headlines are less insane than nottheonion ones

Honestly I do something similar at my work. I can have full days with literally nothing to do. I'll usually have something vaguely work related waiting full-screen behind my random browsing or Google rabbit hole I'm going down. Someone walks by and I switch to that and look very engrossed in what I'm doing.

I assume this is what they did when he first took over x