President Trump is posting on Twitter nearly twice as much as when he first entered office, according to a new analysis of his social media activity published Saturday.
Mr. Trump has tweeted an average of 83 times per week so far in 2019, up 91% from 2017 when he tweeted roughly 44 times per week, CNN reported.
The president has also started sharing tweets from other Twitter users at a much higher rate than before, CNN reported. Mr. Trump posted an average of 83 retweets per week in 2019, up 326% compared to two years earlier, according to the report.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
Mr. Trump was a prolific Twitter user prior to running for the presidency, though he previously said after winning that he might stop using the social media platform once in the White House.
“I’m going to do very restrained, if I use it at all, I’m going to be very restrained,” Mr. Trump said in late 2016.
Mr. Trump has remained as active as ever on Twitter since becoming president, however, making waves regularly as a result of his unprecedented use of the platform. He has repeatedly leveraged his widely-followed Twitter account to announce official government policy and White House personnel changes, in addition to regularly attacking his political opponents and critics.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat, urged Twitter earlier this week to suspend Mr. Trump’s account after he shared a tweet that falsely claimed the congresswoman was partying during the recent anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack. Mr. Trump had attacked Ms. Omar on Twitter before, and the congresswoman has said that the tweets have resulted in her receiving death threats.
“They have a responsibility and they set community standards and clearly the president has shown many-a-times that he has violated their community standards,” Ms. Omar said Wednesday. “I don’t even know why his account is not fully suspended — why he’s not deplatformed.”
Twitter previously responded to complaints about Mr. Trump’s account by saying the company was wary of suspending accounts associated with any world leaders.
“Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets, would hide important information people should be able to see and debate,” Twitter said in a 2018 blog post. “It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.”
Mr. Trump’s official Twitter account is currently followed by more than 64.4 million users, up from 18 million in December 2016.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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