Good morning! It’s the first day of a fresh new week in America. Let’s mosey on over to Twitter and see what the President of the United States has to say about our week ahead.
People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017
Oh. Well, that’s not going to go over well with Trump’s lawyers. Let’s see what else is happening in Trumpland…
The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017
Ah, I see. Well, the President is mad that the Muslim ban got “watered down.” Seems strange that he would continue pushing the case to the Supreme Court if he hates it that much.
I wonder what else is on the president’s mind this morning?
The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court – & seek much tougher version!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017
Yeesh. He’s really mad about this ban. I wonder if his next tweet will be about something else.
In any event we are EXTREME VETTING people coming into the U.S. in order to help keep our country safe. The courts are slow and political!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017
Nope. Still the ban. The courts are slow and political? Man, it’s almost as if the judicial branch was designed to be slow so that a deliberative body could be a rationally minded check on the executive’s powers.
It would probably be a safe bet to guess that Trump was watching MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning. Here’s what was on at 6:04am ET, shortly before the president started tweeting at 6:25am Eastern time:
When is a travel ban not a travel ban? Trump WH in their own words. pic.twitter.com/xZo6ntGCJI
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) June 5, 2017
There’s a lot to parse in these tweets, especially since so many of them directly contradict what Trump’s own staff have said with regard to the ban. Sean Spicer has both disagreed with the use of the word “ban” to describe it, and has also repeatedly said that the president’s tweets speak for themselves.
Sean Spicer even insinuated last week that Trump meant to tweet the word “covfefe,” an obvious typo sent out into the world. He insisted that “a small group of people know exactly what he meant.”
Spicer on 'covfefe' tweet: "The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant." https://t.co/URM4mW8pmO
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) May 31, 2017
We’ll see if the president’s staff tries to say that he doesn’t actually mean the word “ban” this time. Calling out that simple fact about confusion over the word seems to have set Trump off.
As if right on time, someone built a bot this past weekend to put Trump’s tweets into a format that’s more befitting of a president. Yes, the Twitter account RealPressSecBot turns Trump’s tweets into official White House statements, which is obviously the way in which they should be interpreted.
https://twitter.com/embed/status/871674468896194560
The bot definitely helps put things in perspective:
https://twitter.com/embed/status/871675728013676544
https://twitter.com/embed/status/871678241035112449
https://twitter.com/embed/status/871679499590524928
It’s going to be another long week, folks. Strap in.
Update, 7:41am: In what can only be described as perfect timing, White House spokesperson Kellyanne Conway just said this on the Today Show:
WATCH: “This obsession with covering everything he says on Twitter and very little what he does as president…” –@KellyannePolls pic.twitter.com/iyS3WnHoxh
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) June 5, 2017
Update, 10:02am: You’re never going to believe this but he’s still going. And still watching TV, apparently.
.@foxandfriends Dems are taking forever to approve my people, including Ambassadors. They are nothing but OBSTRUCTIONISTS! Want approvals.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017
And in what might be one of his most disgusting tweets to date, the president is doubling down on his mischaracterization of what the mayor of London said after the attack:
Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his "no reason to be alarmed" statement. MSM is working hard to sell it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017
Trump is referring to this tweet where he said that the Mayor of London said “there’s no reason to be alarmed.” If you look at the mayor’s full statement, he actually said, “Londoners will see increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days. There’s no reason to be alarmed.”
