White House staffers once discussed asking Twitter to put a 15-minute delay on President Donald Trump‘s tweets, the New York Times reports.
In an article outlining the commander in chief’s affinity for the social media site, a source claimed that the proposal was made early on in Trump’s presidency.
The staffers hoped the delay would give them time to vet the president’s tweets before they reached the masses.
In order to implement such a plan, the staffers would have to contact Twitter and convince the company to cooperate.
The proposal was quickly scrapped after Trump’s team recognized the major potential for political fallout if the delay was picked up by the press or, even worse, the president himself.
But discussions on a 15-minute tweet delay were just one of the claims made in the Times’ report.
Foreign governments also regularly use Twitter to try and influence Trump. Thousands of tweets are directed at the president by accounts tied to China, Iran, and Russia. The majority of the tweets reportedly attempt to stroke Trump’s ego by praising both him and his policies. In one instance, Trump is even said to have retweeted an account tied to a foreign propaganda operation that tweeted: “We love you Mr. President!”
Trump also reportedly makes an effort not to tweet in public to hide the fact that he needs reading glasses to see the screen on his iPhone. The president will often tell White House Social Media Director Dan Scavino what to tweet, while Scavino may in turn print out ideas for tweets “in extra-large fonts for Mr. Trump to sign off on.”
Another finding indicates that over half of Trump’s 11,000 tweets surround attacks on other people. Just over 2,000 of the tweets heap praise on the president himself.
When he isn’t busy patting himself on the back, Trump is often retweeting accounts that “promote conspiracy or extremist content.”
READ MORE:
- Obama-era tweet backfires on Trump after ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death
- Trump signed an ego tweet sheet for Tomi Lahren–and it features conspiracy theorists
- Facebook won’t take down Trump’s anti-Biden ad
