President Donald Trump didn’t tweet until almost 11 a.m. Monday morning, raising questions about whether he’s backing off his favored communication method to directly reach the American people.
Since being sworn into office, the president of the United States has not stopped sending out 140-character missives from his Twitter account to his 25 million followers. That is, until Monday morning, when the prolific tweeter waited until almost 11 a.m. to send a message about meeting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It was the first time since Jan. 20 that he didn’t tweet before 8:15 a.m. on a work day.
“This is just another signal,” said Professor Jennifer Grygiel, who studies social media at Syracuse University. “Social media managers can easily build a schedule to make sure there are constant posts. So the lack of a tweet is a signal.”
Trump’s use of twitter has been one of the most intriguing and, at times, controversial parts of his administration. Trump usually fires out a series of tweets early each morning setting a tone for the day’s events. He has used twitter for spats with Mexico and warned North Korea about its use of nuclear technology. He’s railed against the media. This weekend, he got into a Twitter spat with NBA Dallas Mavericks owner and entrepreneur Mark Cuban. But he was noticeably quiet Monday morning.
Experts like Grygiel have been wondering when the prolific tweeter was going to change up his pattern enough that people noticed.