President Trump arrives in the Oval Office these days as late as noon, when he is usually in a sour mood after his morning marathon of television.

He has been up in the White House master bedroom as early as 5am watching Fox News, then CNN, with a dollop of MSNBC thrown in for rage viewing. He makes calls with the TV on in the background, his routine since he first arrived at the White House.

But now there are differences.

The President sees few allies no matter which channel he clicks. He is angry even with Fox, an old security blanket, for not portraying him as he would like to be seen. And he makes time to watch governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s briefings from New York, closely monitoring for a sporadic compliment or snipe.

Confined to the White House, the President is isolated from the supporters, visitors, travel and golf that once entertained him, according to more than a dozen administration officials and close advisers who spoke about Mr. Trump’s strange new life. He is tested weekly, as is Vice- President Mike Pence, for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

The economy — Trump’s main case for re-election — has imploded. News coverage of his handling of the coronavirus has been overwhelmingly negative as Democrats have condemned him for a lack of empathy, honesty and competence in the face of a pandemic. Even Republicans have criticised Trump’s briefings as long-winded and his rough handling of critics as unproductive.

His own internal polling shows him sliding in some swing states, a major reason he declared a temporary halt to the issuance of green cards to those outside the US. The executive order — watered down with loopholes after an uproar from business groups — was aimed at pleasing his political base, people close to him said, and was the kind of move Trump makes when things feel out of control. Friends who have spoken to him said he seemed unsettled and worried about losing the election.

But the President’s primary focus, advisers said, is assessing how his performance on the virus is measured in the news media, and the extent to which history will blame him.

“He’s frustrated,” said Stephen Moore, an outside economic adviser to Trump who was the President’s pick to sit on the Federal Reserve Board before his history of sexist comments and lack of child support payments surfaced. “It’s like being hit with a meteor.”

Trump frequently vents about how he is portrayed. He was enraged by an article this month in which his health secretary, Alex M. Azar II, was said to have warned Trump in January about the possibility of a pandemic. Trump was upset that he was being blamed while zar was portrayed in a more favourable light, aides said. The President told friends that he assumed Azar was working the news media to try to save his own reputation.