Aide says Donald Trump's Twitter engagement a "really exciting part" of his presidency
President-elect Donald Trump has frequently turned to Twitter to get his message out -- and incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Mr. Trump’s engagement with supporters on social media will be “a really exciting part” of his presidency.
“I think that his use of social media in particular … is gonna be something that’s never been seen before,” Spicer said in an interview with Rhode Island news station WPRI released on Monday. “He has this direct pipeline in the American people, where he can talk back and forth.”
Mr. Trump, who at last count had just under 18 million Twitter followers, tweets about seemingly everything -- from criticism of his political opponents to pushback on media stories he deems unfair. In the last 24 hours alone, Mr. Trump has used Twitter to push back on President Obama’s claim that he could have beaten Mr. Trump at the polls in 2016, criticize the United Nations for not living up to its “great potential” and defend his charitable foundation.
“He can put his thoughts out and hear what they’re thinking in a way that no one’s ever been able to do before,” Spicer said in the WPRI interview. “I mean, he does communicate in a much bigger way than there’s ever been before, and I think that’s gonna be just a really exciting part of the job.”
Mr. Trump himself has said he will continue to tweet once he enters the White House, though he suggested in a “60 Minutes” interview last month that he will be “very restrained” on the social media network.
“I find it tremendous,” he said of Twitter, which he said contributed to his 2016 victory. “It’s a modern form of communication. There should be nothing we should be ashamed of.”
