President Donald Trump is — almost — nowhere on Twitter right now.
Over the past 48 hours, Trump has sent three tweets and retweeted one other thing. That’s it. By comparison, Trump sent 10 tweets and retweeted four other tweets in the previous two days.
And, it’s not just the volume of tweets that represents a marked change of late for Trump. It’s the kind of things he’s tweeting.
Here are the three tweets Trump has sent over the last 48 hours:
1. “Yesterday, I was thrilled to be with so many WONDERFUL friends, in Utah’s MAGNIFICENT Capitol.
It was my honor to sign two Presidential Proclamations that will modify the national monuments designations of both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante …”
2. “Join me this Friday in Pensacola, Florida at the Pensacola Bay Center!”
3. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump also retweeted something from his own social media director Dan Scavino — linking to a video of “border wall prototypes” being built.
That quartet of tweets/retweets are — dare I say it! — the sort of stuff you could imagine President Barack Obama tweeting. Hey, I made a policy announcement in Utah! I am coming to Pensacola! And one of the major policy proposals I made during the campaign is proceeding!
Normal is weird when it comes to Trump. Especially when dealing with Twitter, where Trump’s willingness to paint WAY outside the lines of normal presidential behavior is usually in its fullest bloom.
What is going on?
Short answer: We don’t know. But, we do have some clues.
Trump’s Twitter feed was at the center of a massive controversy on Saturday when this tweet posted: “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”
Trump had never mentioned that he knew Flynn lied to the FBI when he decided to terminate his national security adviser. And, if he did know Flynn had lied to the FBI in regards the Russia investigation, Trump’s decision to ask then FBI Director James Comey to find a way to let go of the Flynn investigation starts to look very, very fishy.
Sensing real peril for the President, John Dowd, the President’s personal lawyer, came out to say he had actually written the tweet and that it was simply a bungled attempt to paraphrase White House lawyer Ty Cobb’s statement on Flynn’s guilty plea the day before. (Cobb’s statement, it’s worth noting, said nothing about what Trump knew about Flynn’s statements to the FBI.) This is all just one big misunderstanding!
Then on Sunday, Trump sent a flurry of tweets savaging the FBI and the Justice Department. “After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters – worst in History!,” read one. “But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness.”
Those tweets drew harsh rebukes from many who viewed those sort of attacks from a sitting President as way out of bounds.
And then nothing. Or nothing written in the classic Trump voice (and odd capitalization) since Monday morning.
Could Trump possibly be cowed by the uproar over the tweet allegedly written by Dowd? Or, finally, be listening to his legal counsel’s advice that tweeting about an ongoing special counsel investigation is a very bad move?
Color me skeptical.
Trump has never been one to listen to other people. Or restrain his natural instincts. And, if ever he has done either of those things, he hasn’t done them for long.
I’ve long thought of Trump’s Twitter feed as an active volcano. It might not erupt everyday. But if it doesn’t erupt on any given day, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a whole lot of liquid hot magma streaming around and pressure building up. It’s going to erupt. The only issue is pinpointing exactly when.
Never fear then: The Donald Trump you’ve come to know, love, hate or love/hate will return. And probably soon. But, the current lacuna — given Trump’s established Twitter habits — is, without question, strange.