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Like his hair, President Donald Trump‘s tweets are an integral part of his White House identity.
But during arevealing in-person interview withNew York Timesreporters, Trump gave out printed handouts of his tweets at the same time a staffer published them on his account — proving the president isn’t the only one who hits his blue “Tweet” button.
“Fresh from ameeting on tradewith China’s vice premier, Mr. Trump seemed relaxed and confident as he sought to make his case,” wroteTimesreporters Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, “distributing handouts including, at one point, printed copies of two tweets sent out in his name even as he was speaking with his visitors.”
Haberman told PEOPLE that the tweets on the printouts were the ones published on Thursday at around 5 p.m. Trump also gave the reporters a photocopy of the picture featured in the tweets.
In the wide-ranging interview, published on Tuesday, Trump talked about his plan to declare a national emergency in order to build his border wall, since he believes negotiations with Congress are a “waste of time.” He also dismissed insinuations that he’s done anything wrong, even as the Russia investigation closes in on more of his associates, per the outlet.
While the reporters focused on these heavy topics, the president’s decision to pass out Twitter handouts also stood out to them. Why? It’s indicative of how he operates in the White House, the reporters said. Trump has a history of using Twitter to name-call his enemies, declare new policy (like the transgender ban in the military) and threaten nuclear war with North Korea.
TheTimesreport isn’t the first one to note that Trump has staffers who assist with presidential tweets.
“[Trump would] fire off tweets from the residence at all hours and usually without any advance notice to staff,” Sims writes. “During the day, he would call Dan into the Oval to dictate tweets, complete with punctuation instructions — dash, dash, ‘sad,’ exclamation point — and his own unique way of capitalizing seemingly random words for emphasis.”
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He continues: “Early on, there wasn’t an official channel to submit recommended tweets, but Dan would come in with a printout of various options. Trump would approve them, disapprove them, or make tweaks, but you can rest assured that he wasn’t letting anything go out without his sign-off.
“In that regard, he was like a publisher, fiercely protective of his brand and loyal to his audience — he only wanted to put out things they’d want to read.”
Sims, who was on the communications team as a special assistant to Trump until 2018 after working on Trump’s campaign, also became “adept” at copying Trump’s voice.
“Policy and communications aides would bring their topics to me and I’d craft the most Trumpian tweet I could,” he writes, “then submit it for approval, with a pretty good success rate.”
“I have somebody — boom boom, they give me the quotes,” the president told theTimesreporters.
In another twist, Trump told the reporters that being president is not lucrative. He described the job as a “loser” financially, according to theTimes.
“I lost massive amounts of money doing this job,” Trump said, per the outlet. “This is not the money. This is one of the great losers of all time. You know, fortunately, I don’t need money. This is one of the great losers of all time. But they’ll say that somebody from some country stayed at a hotel. And I’ll say, ‘Yeah.’ But I lose, I mean, the numbers are incredible.”
source: people.com
