The president’s Twitter feed has been more than unusually active on Wednesday and Thursday: host of tweets taking swipes as his enemies and claiming that he’s not getting credit for good news. The number and intensity of these tweets suggest that the political scandals engulfing his presidency require a rallying of loyal troops.
The torrent began with a false claim that Google hadn’t informed its users about Trump’s State of the Union address. Then Trump issued a contradictory thread explaining why negotiations with North Korea are stalled, where the president both effusively praised North Korean and Chinese leaders while blaming them for the slow down in progress.
Subsequent tweets included calling legendary reporter Carl Bernstein a “degenerate fool”:
CNN is being torn apart from within based on their being caught in a major lie and refusing to admit the mistake. Sloppy @carlbernstein, a man who lives in the past and thinks like a degenerate fool, making up story after story, is being laughed at all over the country! Fake News
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2018
Trump also claimed without evidence that Lester Holt fudged a taped interview with Trump:
What’s going on at @CNN is happening, to different degrees, at other networks - with @NBCNews being the worst. The good news is that Andy Lack(y) is about to be fired(?) for incompetence, and much worse. When Lester Holt got caught fudging my tape on Russia, they were hurt badly!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2018
Further, the President suggested that Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr should be fired:
Wow, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr’s wife, is a Russia expert who is fluent in Russian. She worked for Fusion GPS where she was paid a lot. Collusion! Bruce was a boss at the Department of Justice and is, unbelievably, still there!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2018
CNBC suggests that “The president’s social media fusillade dovetailed with recent news reports suggesting that Trump and his attorneys are adopting a siege mentality, as the potential threats loom from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, compounded by the potential for Democrats flipping the House in the midterm elections and the investigations they might launch. There’s also the specter of impeachment, which Trump has discussed with his lawyers.”
These hectic and sometimes unfactual tweets run parallel with Trump’s public statements, which have been more dishonest than usual even for him. As Daniel Dale, who tracks the president’s misstatements for The Toronto Star, notes, this last week Trump “made 67 false claims in all, the fifth-highest number for any week of his presidency.”