This article was published on January 16, 2017

Trump’s epic tweets won’t dry up after his inauguration


Trump’s epic tweets won’t dry up after his inauguration

In the months running up to the US elections, President-elect Donald Trump’s Twitter stream has shocked, angered, and entertained the world as it gave us a ring-side view of how his mind works.

The transition to the next administration will see Trump and Co. take over the White House’s social channels, including the @POTUS Twitter account, which has racked up more than 13.5 million followers since it was set up in May 2015. But if you’re worried about Trump being neutered on the network, you can lay those fears to rest.

Speaking to The Sunday Times about his style of governance, the President-elect said he intended to stick with his personal Twitter account and keep his unfiltered thoughts flowing, because of how many followers he has:

@realDonaldTrump I think, I’ll keep it . . . so I’ve got 46 million people right now — that’s a lot, that’s really a lot — but 46 million — including Facebook, Twitter and ya know, Instagram, so when you think that you’re 46 million there, I’d rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, it’s working — and the tweeting, I thought I’d do less of it, but I’m covered so dishonestly by the press — so dishonestly — that I can put out Twitter — and it’s not 140, it’s now 280 — I can go bing bing bing . . . and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out — this morning on television, Fox — ‘Donald Trump, we have breaking news’.

It isn’t clear whether Trump’s administration will use @POTUS as an official account for issuing statements and such. But if The Donald keeps his personal account, we can expect to see him engage in more feuds with civil rights activists and continue threatening to sue his critics as president over the next four years on Twitter.

Meanwhile, outgoing President Barack Obama has a personal account you can follow even after he leaves office. Plus, all the content created during Obama’s time in office will be preserved in partnership with the the National Archives and Records Administration, from tweets to Medium posts to the current WhiteHouse.gov site.

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