Over the last 25 months, the Barack Obama administration has grown @POTUS to a Twitter account followed by 13.5 million people. Obama has that @POTUS goes with the office, but it’s been unclear if President-elect Donald Trump would tweet from the account starting Jan. 20.
Now it appears Trump has no interest in taking over @POTUS, after all.
In an interview with the U.K.’s Sunday Times, Trump said he would continue to tweet from @realDonaldTrump, which boasts 20 million followers and from which he has recently blasted a civil rights hero, defended himself against the Russian hacking, and continuously complained about Saturday Night Live.
Trump told the Sunday Times:
@realDonaldTrump I think, I’ll keep it … so I’ve got 46 million people right now—that’s a lot, that’s really a lot—but 46 million—including Facebook, Twitter and you know, Instagram, so when you think that you’re 46 million there, I’d rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, it’s working—and the tweeting, I thought I’d do less of it, but I’m covered so dishonestly by the press—so dishonestly—that I can put out Twitter—and it’s not 140, it’s now 280—I can go bing bing bing … and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out—this morning on television, Fox—‘Donald Trump, we have breaking news’.
He’s right, of course. Every time Trump tweets, he makes news. And with his Facebook following of more than 17 million and his Instagram following of 4.7 million, his internet impact is quite large (though it’s not quite the 42 million he claimed in the interview).
He doesn’t need @POTUS, and according to NBC, the Trump transition team said he won’t be using that account.
Transition sources tell me @realDonaldTrump intends to keep using his own account as president, not switching to @potus himself
— Kelly O’Donnell (@KellyO) January 16, 2017
The White House social media accounts do transfer to the new administration and could still be used by Trump staff
— Kelly O’Donnell (@KellyO) January 16, 2017
It’s worth noting Quinnipiac University released a poll this month in which it found that 64 percent of Americans (and 71 percent of those between the ages of 18-34) want Trump to shut down his personal Twitter account.
H/T Mediaite
