How Trump’s campaign staffers tried to keep him off Twitter

According to the former communications director of the Trump Campaign it was advantageous to supply him with positive coverage to prevent him from tweeting inflammatory things.

Politico
The key to keeping Trump’s Twitter habit under control, according to six former campaign officials, is to ensure that his personal media consumption includes a steady stream of praise. And when no such praise was to be found, staff would turn to friendly outlets to drum some up — and make sure it made its way to Trump’s desk. "If candidate Trump was upset about unfair coverage, it was productive to show him that he was getting fair coverage from outlets that were persuadable," said former communications director Sam Nunberg. "The same media that our base digests and prefers is going to be the base for his support. I would assume the president would like to see positive and preferential treatment from those outlets and that would help the operation overall."

The former staffer alleging these things is Sam Nunberg, who is currently being sued by Trump.

Red State
Today, for reasons only known by Donald Trump, Trump decided to file suit against his former Senior Consultant, Sam Nunberg, as Caleb reported, and subsequently I wrote about the beans having been spilled on the alleged Lewandowski/Hicks love affair. But the Huffington Post picked up on yet another angle. Sam Nunberg has now alleged in a court document what many conservatives have thought for a long time … Donald Trump set up fake business entities to augment his actual campaign, allowing him to maneuver around the restrictions put upon most campaigns.

Politico
Staff members had one advantage as they aimed to manage candidate Trump’s media diet: He rarely reads anything online, instead preferring print newspapers — especially his go-to, The New York Times — and reading material his staff brought to his desk. Indeed, his media consumption habits were on full display during his roller-coaster news conference this past Thursday, when he continually remarked on what the media would write “tomorrow,” even as print outlets’ websites already had posted stories about his remarks.

What he deems as "fake news" is his prefered news outlet.

According to the same Politico article team Trump had similar propaganda support as the Hillary Campaign:

For example, when Trump engaged in a Twitter war with Khizr Khan, the father of a slain Muslim U.S. soldier in Iraq, the team set up a meeting with Gold Star Mothers of Florida and made sure to plant the story in conservative media. Breitbart also wrote stories about Khan's relationships with the Democratic Party. "We made sure that conservative media was aware of it, they connected the echo chamber," the former official said.

We're being fed propaganda from all angles and according to this account so is the President. We're all on the same team ATS! Wake the # up.

a reply to: PistolPete

Trump being kept away from twitter , Hillary being kept away from the bottle . Blah blah blah .

a reply to: hutch622

Really? At least discredit the source of the article who is being sued by Trump and not the boogeywoman that's most certainly not the President.

Why did you bother?

a reply to: PistolPete

A seeing eye dog would try to keep trump away from twitter . And Trump seems to sue everybody . And i bothered because i could .

a reply to: PistolPete

Breaking:

American psychiatrists have identified a new condition called Post Election Stress Disorder (PESD), comparable to the trauma suffered by troops in combat.

Apparently the PESD epidemic is the result of people being unable to come to terms with Hillary Clinton's defeat by Donald Trump and is responsible from marriage break-ups and meltdowns at work, to attempted suicide and car crashes.

(coutesy of LITTLEJOHN co of dailymail.co.uk Feb 24 2017)

I found it not only funny, but probably, in context, true

Richard Littlejohn LOL

a reply to: hutch622

So blah blah blah then I guess.

The fact that the Trump campaign was admittedly influencing conservative media in the same way that the Hillary campaign was influencing the media is just whatevs?

The fact that according to this article President Trump's favorite media outlet is the NYT, who he refers to as fake news repeatedly is just whatevs?

But Hillary's a drunk. Good discussion.

a reply to: PistolPete
This is plausible, because Trump's Twitter habit is risky.
In many ways, it has been his "secret weapon". It communicates with people directly, by-passing the interpreters. It has become a way of controlling the topics of debate, because his opponents feel obliged to talk about what he tweets.
Yet it would be even more effective as a weapon if he would only rein it in a little, instead of allowing it to run away with him. Any sensible assistant would want him to tweet with just a touch more control.

a reply to: corblimeyguvnor

I referenced the Hillary campaign's influence over their own sympathetic media as well. How do you have a discussion here without people crying?

a reply to: DISRAELI

Appreciate the reply.

I posted the full title of the article I was making the thread about as I thought that was the ATS standard now. This isn't entirely about Trump tweeting, this is about the people around him manipulating the information he consumes to control what he thinks and I believe he ultimately believes what he tweets.

If you can control his twitter feed how hard is it to control him?

a reply to: PistolPete
It seems they were only "controlling" it in the sense of trying to quieten it down.
All leaders are vulnerable to a degree of control by those who have access to them and give them information. That's one of the weaknesses of the position.

a reply to: DISRAELI

This goes beyond his staffers massaging his ego for damage control (same article from Politico):

A former senior campaign official said Nunberg and his successor, former communications director Jason Miller, were particularly skilled at using alternative media like Breitbart, Washington Examiner, Infowars and the Daily Caller to show Trump positive coverage.

And once they got the stories published, campaign officials with large numbers of Twitter followers would tweet them out.

That turns the whole fake news narrative on end.

a reply to: PistolPete

This is interesting.

In essence his staffers pushed or even coerced reporters to publish stories that Trump would have a "feel good" emotional response to in order to reign in potential twitter tantrums.

Is that the gist of things here?

How malleable is his mind?

It makes me question if his team walk on egg shells, ever wary of how he may react... It's what I pull away from this thread.

a reply to: corblimeyguvnor

Oh my holy deflection.

a reply to: hutch622

More deflection.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: PistolPete
This is plausible, because Trump's Twitter habit is risky.
In many ways, it has been his "secret weapon". It communicates with people directly, by-passing the interpreters. It has become a way of controlling the topics of debate, because his opponents feel obliged to talk about what he tweets.
Yet it would be even more effective as a weapon if he would only rein it in a little, instead of allowing it to run away with him. Any sensible assistant would want him to tweet with just a touch more control.

The word is any. Any control.

More Fake News.

fake news.