“This is truly unhinged behavior from the President of the United States,” Representative Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat, wrote online after the Carney post. “And I don’t want to hear ‘oh, it’s just Trump being Trump’ or that he’s ‘trolling.’ Enough. None of this is normal or okay. Republicans cannot keep shrugging this off. Congress, the Cabinet, and everyone around him has a responsibility to stop enabling this dangerous behavior and start asking whether he is fit to hold this office.”
The White House shrugged off the criticism. “Truth Social is the most powerful and popular social media platform in the world because it serves as President Trump’s authentic voice, where he communicates directly with the American people and the world without the biased media taking him out of context,” Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman, said in a statement, using the name of the president’s social media platform.
In fact, by traditional measures, Truth Social is nowhere near as popular as major social media platforms like Facebook or X and its traffic has slumped since last year. But it has effectively become the town hall for Mr. Trump’s MAGA followers and therefore plays an outsize role in American politics. Either posting himself or approving posts crafted by aides, Mr. Trump uses it as his main outlet for presidential messages to the world.
Last Sunday was a striking day on Truth Social but increasingly typical of the president’s weekend blitzes, when he has fewer staff members around him and more unscheduled time. While at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., Mr. Trump started posting at 11:54 a.m. and kept returning to his account in staccato bursts throughout the day. At 1:47 p.m., he posted six messages within two minutes. From 2:40 p.m. to 3:43 p.m., he circulated another 27 posts. He continued through the evening, only letting up after his final one of the night at 10:35 p.m.
They were the kinds of posts that are common on the internet, just not normally from a head of state — impertinent, insulting, scornful, belligerent and sometimes out-and-out wacky. They offered a Rorschach test for followers, funny to those who admire what they see as Mr. Trump’s wry sense of humor, delusional to those who think he has lost his mind.
As with Canada, his many posts on Iran that day portrayed his war as he would like it to be, not how it really is. In the actual Middle East outside of his control, Mr. Trump is stuck in a quagmire with no clear end in sight. In the virtual Middle East of his own creation, Mr. Trump is a triumphal commander in chief bludgeoning Iran into submission.
The flurry of posts last weekend included an image of a bomber attacking with the caption “Bye bye, Kharg,” referring to the Iranian island, and a map showing the Strait of Hormuz labeled “New U.S. Territory.” Another featured supposed before-and-after maps of Iran with the latter showing the country in the shape of Mr. Trump’s own wavy-haired profile.
Maps, in fact, were big with Mr. Trump as he played with his phone that day. He posted a map of the north half of the Western Hemisphere showing the U.S. flag superimposed on Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Iceland, Cuba and all of Central America and the Caribbean islands, all under the label “United States of America.”
Canada, Mexico and Greenland have gotten used to this sort of provocation, but Iceland was shocked to be included, and summoned the U.S. ambassador to complain. “There is nothing funny or normal about making fun of the sovereignty of states,” Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir of Iceland told reporters.
Even as he showcased his imperialist ambitions abroad, Mr. Trump asserted his authoritarian instincts at home, posting multiple maps and images of him peremptorily renaming the state of New Mexico as “New America,” something he has no power to do. As with the Icelanders, the New Mexicans were not amused. “Oh hell no!” Representative Melanie Stansbury, a Democrat, wrote online.
While Mr. Trump’s posts regularly influence domestic politics and foreign policy, he also uses A.I. to promote grandiose visions of himself as a superhero, a pope and at one point last spring a Jesus-like figure. Last weekend’s posts included one that he has circulated before offering his own chart ranking American presidents, with him, naturally, at the top as “The Greatest.” Another post asserted: “He Will Go Down In History As the Greatest President of All Time!”
Mr. Trump, who avoided the draft during the Vietnam War with a diagnosis of bone spurs provided by a doctor who was one of his father’s tenants, particularly enjoys presenting himself as a martial hero.
In an image posted last month, Mr. Trump wore the military uniform that he never wore in real life standing between Generals George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur. George Washington has become a regular guest in Mr. Trump’s world lately. Sunday’s burst included images of him with the father of the country on horseback and in the Oval Office.
The advent of A.I. has allowed Mr. Trump to go further than the mainly written social media posts of his first term. “Trump has always treated social media as a window into whatever he is thinking at that moment, but A.I. makes that window far more vivid and frankly more disturbing,” said Ms. Matthews, his former press aide. “And it feels like the more difficult reality gets for him, the more A.I. slop he posts.”
Mr. Bruesewitz, the former campaign aide, called Mr. Trump an innovator who is paving the way to the future of politics. “President Trump is the first true social media president,” he said. “He has always adapted to the times, using new technology and platforms to take his message straight to the public. His A.I. posts generate enormous attention whenever he hits send.”
No one would debate that they are attention generators. One way or another, that seems to be the point.
Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The Times. He is covering his sixth presidency and sometimes writes analytical pieces that place presidents and their administrations in a larger context and historical framework.
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