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WASHINGTON (AP) – Former President Donald Trump insists he’s enjoying his life on Twitter. The press releases that his collaborators launch more and more frequently are more “elegant”, he says. Plus, there is no risk of backlash for retweeting unsavory accounts.
But as Trump has been banned from major social media channels after helping incite the deadly Jan.6 insurgency on Capitol Hill, his power to shape the national conversation is being tested.
Trump has gone from a reality TV star to a politician and president, bending the tools of communication and the media to his will. He is always in touch with his supporters through his releases and appearances on Fox News and other conservative media, where he repeats misinformation about the 2020 election. And he remains a powerful force within the Republican Party, with a leading role on Saturday at a Republican National Committee event to be held at his club in Mar-a-Lago.
Still, the hold on American life he once loved seems to be eroding – at least for now.
“It will never be the same for Trump unless he is a candidate again,” said Harold Holzer, a historian who is director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College and who has written a book on presidents and the press. “I don’t think it’s abnormal that the coverage is decreasing. I’m sure it’s hard on his ego, given the amount of oxygen he sucks in and the amount of ink he generates, but it’s not abnormal for a former president to attract less. attention.
It was, however, a dramatic adjustment. Trump’s tweets used to drive the news cycle, with CNN, MSNBC and Fox News often spending dozens of hours a week combined displaying his missives, according to a GDELT analysis of the television news archive. Since he has been banned from Twitter and other platforms, Trump can no longer speak directly to large swathes of his audience and must now rely on his supporters and the conservative and mainstream media to amplify his messages.
To make up for the ongoing power outage, Trump aides have issued statements and approvals that often resemble the tweets he used to dictate. “Happy Easter to EVERYONE, including the MADS of the radical left who rigged our presidential election and who want to destroy our country!” read an envoy from its political action committee. (“Happy Easter!” Was the more low-key version offered by his official government office.)
At the same time, Trump has stepped up his appearances in conservative media – even sitting with his stepdaughter for his online program. But few of those comments have reverberated as the mainstream media, long criticized for allowing Trump to dictate coverage, is increasingly wary of repeating his lies, especially with regard to the 2020 election.
While Trump is still covered, Google search results for his name are at their lowest point since 2015, as the Washington Post noted this week. And on late night television, some have tried to clean it up completely, with “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert refusing to say his name.
After five years of wall-to-wall Trump, the contrast is shocking.
“He was unlike any previous president in the amount of oxygen he sucked in. But he looks more and more like many former presidents in the little oxygen he now receives, ”said Ari Fleischer, who was George W. Bush’s press secretary. While this is the reality for any former president, Fleischer argued that Trump continues to “hold a prominent place” in the party and could return to the limelight if he chooses to run again.
And although its dominance of cable news has dropped precipitously from its fall 2016 high, when it was mentioned tens of thousands of times a month, according to GDELT data, it still remains on news channels. of the cable.
“Two months out of office, he is still roughly where he was in March of last year when the pandemic largely displaced him,” said Kalev Leetaru, the creator of the project. “It shows that even after two months away from the office, he’s still important.
While most of Trump’s statements garner relatively little coverage, some, such as the one that criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as “a stern, sullen, and smileless political hack,” have dominated media coverage. , with CNN, in particular, running with 44 minutes.
“President Trump is the greatest generator of information in American history,” Trump spokesman Jason Miller said, insisting, “There has never been this kind of media interest. for the post-presidential careers of Clinton, Bush or Obama. ”
Others see it differently.
“I think he lost all momentum when he was taken off the platforms. Politics is about momentum and it doesn’t have momentum now, ”said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.
As Trump tried to inject himself into the news coverage, Brinkley said his comments were largely treated as additions to coverage focused on other issues. “Where he was he was spinning tweets like Zeus, they were like lightning bolts from the top, and now it’s little squeaks from the Mar-a-Lago mouse,” he said.
Yet Trump remains a dominant figure in the Republican Party. His endorsement is highly coveted as the 2022 Republican primaries approach. And he continues to publicly flirt with running for president again in 2024.
And Holzer believes Trump could reappear if he’s allowed to join Twitter or if he plans to start his own social media outlet, as his aides have said.
GOP strategist Alex Conant argued that Trump’s power is “diminishing by the day” as other Republicans plan to run in 2024, and said Trump could take a more strategic approach if he wanted to stay in the daily conversation.
“When you’re President of the United States, it’s very easy to fit into every news cycle. But once you’ve left office, it has to be more strategic, ”Conant said, saying Trump could have announced a book, sat down for prime-time interviews or delivered a series of major speeches on the subject. future of the party.
Fleischer also argued that Trump could have greater influence by following in the footsteps of Presidents Bush and Obama, whose statements attract attention because they are rare.
“The risk for a former president is that you risk starting to be seen as former senators or former members of Congress or contributors who are regularly on television. A former president should have a high posture, ”he said. “But Donald Trump has always done things differently with some success.”
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