His tweets have the power to shape international relations, send stock prices up — or down — and galvanize the American public. We’re watching…
His tweets have the power to shape international relations, send stock prices up — or down — and galvanize the American public.
We’re watching how Donald Trump is using this platform of unfettered communication now that he’s commander in chief. Here is everything Trump has tweeted since he was sworn in as 45th president of the United States. In many cases, we look at what he was reacting to and whether what he said was accurate. And, as much as possible, we’ll relate what else was going on at the time. Check back for more as Trump continues to tweet.
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President Trump moved quickly Monday to distance himself and the White House from the indictment of his former campaign chairman and a top deputy on charges of conspiracy and money laundering.
Paul Manafort and Richard W. Gates III were charged by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating interactions between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia.
In a tweet a short time after the news became public, the president tried to shift the focus elsewhere, asking why Hillary Clinton and the Democrats aren’t the focus of the probe.
Trump claimed that the indictment against Manafort deals with activities «years ago,» before Trump was running for president. Actually, some of the criminal behavior alleged in the charges is as recent as the early days of his presidency.
Manafort and Gates are charged with criminal activities that go back to 2006 but extend to February of this year. The charges do not refer to Manafort’s activities with the campaign but rather accuse him of laundering money and conspiratorial acts before, during and after he had that job.
The indictment is the first to emerge from the broad investigation by Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. It does not go to the heart of that matter.
But separately, it was revealed Monday that an advisor to Trump’s campaign pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a Russian professor who has close ties to the Russian government.
George Papadopoulos had told the FBI that his interactions with the professor, who promised «dirt» on Trump’s presidential rival, Clinton, took place before he joined the campaign. In fact, Papadopoulos was already a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign when he met the professor in mid-March 2016 and interacted with him after that, according to court documents unsealed Monday.
That was the first criminal count that cites interactions between someone in the Trump campaign and Russian intermediaries.
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President Trump expressed renewed frustration Sunday over the investigations into alleged ties between his campaign associates and Russian government officials, saying on Twitter that the «facts are pouring out» about links to Russia by his former presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton.
«DO SOMETHING!» Trump urged in one of six morning tweets.
Despite investigations that found no wrongdoing, Trump has repeatedly pointed to the Obama administration’s approval of the 2010 sale of U. S. uranium mines to a company backed by the Russian government as an example of Clinton helping the Russians.
Trump and his allies have also sought to highlight the revelation, first reported Tuesday by the Washington Post, that research that led to the compilation of a controversial dossier alleging a compromised relationship between Trump and the Kremlin was funded in part by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee .
But the investigation into Trump’s past that ultimately produced the dossier was actually triggered by a conservative website with strong ties to the Republican establishment, leaders of the website said Friday.
The Washington Free Beacon, which is funded largely by Republican billionaire Paul Singer, confirmed it originally retained the political research firm Fusion GPS during the 2016 election cycle to scour then-candidate Trump’s background for negative information, a common political practice known as «opposition research.»
The Clinton campaign and the DNC reportedly continued funding Fusion’s work after the Free Beacon lost interest.
Trump’s tweets Sunday morning followed a CNN report that a federal grand jury in Washington has approved the first charges in the criminal investigation led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. The report was subsequently confirmed by the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and NBC News.
Trump appeared to suggest that political rivals had seized upon the reports in a bid to divert attention from the GOP effort to push through tax reform .
The president also promised to make another try at overhauling the nation’s healthcare law.
U. S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered with the election to benefit Trump, a finding that Trump has not fully accepted. Mueller is investigating, as are multiple congressional committees.
Ty Cobb, a member of Trump’s legal team, sought Sunday to distance the president’s tweets from Mueller’s investigation.
«Contrary to what many have suggested, the president’s comments today are unrelated to the activities of the special counsel, with whom he continues to cooperate,» Cobb said in a statement.
After a string of tame tweets sent earlier in the afternoon, President Trump appeared unable to resist taking a dig at filmmaker and liberal activist Michael Moore on Saturday.
In a tweet, Trump denounced Moore’s Broadway show as «a TOTAL BOMB» and noted it «was forced to close. Sad!»
Trump prefaced the sentiment with an admission that it was «not at all presidential.»
Moore’s one-man show, «The Terms of My Surrender,» was billed as an examination of the political and cultural dynamics that resulted in Trump’s election.
In August, Moore concluded a showing by leading the audience to Trump Tower to protest the president’s comments in the aftermath of deadly violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.
«The Terms of My Surrender» concluded its limited run at the Belasco Theatre on Oct. 22, which was set as the closing date when the show was first announced. It did not close prematurely, as Trump suggested in his tweet.
President Trump complained Saturday that there has been «very little reporting about the GREAT GDP numbers» showing that the economy grew at an annual rate of 3% in the third quarter.
«Best consecutive [quarters] in years!» Trump tweeted.
The Commerce Department reported Friday that the July-September advance in the gross domestic product — the country’s total output of goods and services — followed a 3.1% rise in the second quarter. It marked the first time in three years that growth has hit at least 3% for two consecutive quarters.
In a tweet sent minutes later, Trump thanked President Carter for suggesting during an interview that the news media have been overly critical of Trump.
“I think the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about,” Carter said during the interview with the New York Times published last Saturday. “I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.”
Carter also expressed a desire to work with the Trump administration on diplomatic solutions with North Korea.
Later Saturday morning, Trump tweeted a video clip of remarks on the opioid epidemic earlier he delivered Thursday.
In his accompanying message, Trump encouraged Americans to participate in a drug takeback day, during which the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration partners with local police departments to hold drop-off events where people can dispose of unused, expired or unwanted prescription drugs.
Trump followed up Saturday afternoon with tweets repeating a statement he issued Friday on the release of government files related to the assassination of President Kennedy:
Trump also thanked law enforcement and rescue personnel in a Saturday afternoon tweet:
Trump’s tweets on Saturday were a departure from his headline-generating social media messages earlier in the week, in which he denounced the NFL for not forcing players to stand during the national anthem, attacked a pair of Republican senators who criticized him and a Democratic megadonor who called for his impeachment, and revisited campaign-related allegations against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
Trump did not address reports – first by CNN, followed by the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and NBC News – that a federal grand jury in Washington has approved charges against at least one person in connection with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible coordination with members of Trump’s campaign team.
The reports, which cited anonymous sources, did not identify the person or people charged. Nor did they specify the nature of the charges, which were reportedly filed Friday and placed under seal.
In addition to the question of Russian election meddling and possible collusion, Mueller also is believed to be investigating whether Trump obstructed an FBI investigation into the matter by firing former FBI Director James B. Comey.
Trump appeared to hit out at Mueller’s investigation on Friday, tweeting, «It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump.» The president went on to accuse Hillary Clinton of colluding with Russia instead.
President Trump sought Friday to downplay ongoing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion among members of his campaign team.
Trump tweeted: «It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump.»
Trump instead accused Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, to whom he referred by her initials, «HC,» of colluding with Russia.
Despite investigations that found no wrongdoing, Trump has repeatedly pointed to the Obama administration’s approval of the 2010 sale of U. S. uranium mines to a company backed by the Russian government as an example of Clinton helping the Russians.
The sale of the Canada-based Uranium One to Russian energy company Rosatom was approved while Clinton led the State Department. Some investors in Uranium One, which owns uranium mines in the United States, had donated to her husband’s global philanthropic foundation.
So far, there is no publicly available evidence that Clinton was aware of Russian efforts or that the FBI investigation uncovered any wrongdoing related to the deal. The State Department was one of nine U. S. departments or agencies that approved the sale, a permitting process required by law for sales with possible national security implications.
Trump and his allies in Congress, along with his confidant Sean Hannity of Fox News, have renewed attacks on the 7-year-old uranium deal to blunt attention to investigations by four congressional committees and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russian election interference.
On Friday, Trump also shared a link to a report aggregating comments from Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, who said that, when it comes to last year’s election, «there’s more evidence, at this point, of Democratic collusion with the Russians than there is of Republican collusion with the Russians.»
Wallace referred to the revelation, as reported Tuesday by the Washington Post, that research that led to the compilation of a dossier detailing allegations about Trump’s ties to Russia was funded in part by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee .
Trump allies have also seized on that development in an attempt to deflect attention from the Russia investigations and bolster the suggestion that such investigations are part of a conspiracy by political rivals to delegitimize Trump’s presidency.
Still, Fox News’ Wallace, who has been more critical of the Trump administration than many of his colleagues, also noted Friday that more information needs to become public before a judgment can be reached.
«This is far more evidence than we’ve ever seen involving President Trump and his campaign that the Democrats were directly involved in trying to get information from the Russians to affect the 2016 campaign,» Wallace said of the report linking the DNC with the dossier research.
«Now, having said that, we still don’t know about Robert Mueller, the investigation,» Wallace continued. «Both things could be true, that both sides were trying to get aid from the Russians, and it certainly seems true that the Russians were playing both sides to disrupt the election. So we still have to wait and see.»
Trump continued to tweet about the topic Friday night, sharing a link to a New York Post opinion piece accusing Clinton’s campaign of orchestrating a «Kremlin-aided smear job» against Trump.
The president attached to his tweet a video featuring a quote from the op-ed, followed by an image of Clinton’s recently published campaign postmortem, «What Happened.»
«NOW WE KNOW!» Trump tweeted.
Trump’s tweet Friday night coincided with the publication of a CNN report that a federal grand jury has approved the first charges stemming from Mueller’s investigation .
President Trump appeared to indicate Friday that the government will release more documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Trump tweeted an image in which he wrote that he plans to release «ALL JFK files other than the names and addresses of any mentioned person who is still living.»
Trump did not provide a timetable for the files’ release. He wrote that he arrived at the decision after consulting with intelligence officials and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly.
Earlier Friday, Trump tweeted that the Kennedy documents «are being carefully released.»
«In the end there will be great transparency,» Trump wrote.
