Donald Trump during a lunch stop in South Carolina. AP Photo/Matt Rourke

President Donald Trump has begun phoning members of his legal team most mornings at about 6:30 a.m. to vent and strategize about the Russia investigation, The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing three senior White House officials.

The discussions usually involve an overview of recent headlines and a plan to combat the "fake news" media, as well as a brainstorming of ways to handle Justice Department officials and the special counsel leading the investigation into whether Trump campaign officials colluded with Russians to meddle in the 2016 election.

The calls typically devolve from strategy consultations into rants, however, and do little to lighten Trump's mood before he arrives at the Oval Office to begin the day's work, the officials told The Post.

Trump's advisers initially encouraged the daily phone calls as a way to help Trump compartmentalize, but The Post reported that one White House official could only laugh when asked whether the calls had been effective.

Indeed, Trump frequently sends out streams of angry tweets early in the mornings, including several on Thursday lambasting the Democratic National Committee's handling of hacks during the 2016 election.

But White House advisers such as Kellyanne Conway say Trump has been tending to "business as usual," despite media reports suggesting otherwise.

"Conjecture about the mood and momentum of the West Wing is inaccurate and overwrought," Conway told The Post. "The pace is breakneck, the trajectory upward."