Trump’s use of Twitter will be ‘really exciting part’ of his presidency, Spicer says

On Monday alone, Donald Trump sent out five tweets on four different topics that got under his skin.

DONALD Trump will continue to tweet as president, according to incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who predicted that Trump’s engagement with supporters via social media will be “a really exciting part of the job.”

“I think that his use of social media in particular … is gonna be something that’s never been seen before,” Spicer told Rhode Island news station WPRI in an interview published Monday. “He has this direct pipeline in the American people, where he can talk back and forth.”

Indeed, the president-elect has continued to tweet since defeating Hillary Clinton in the presidential election last month, maintaining use of a platform he has famously deployed to savage his rivals and attack his critics.On Monday alone, he told his nearly 18 million followers there is “NO WAY!” President Barack Obama could have beaten him in a general election, decried the United Nations as “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time,” claimed credit for Christmas spending and accused the media of not reporting his contributions to the Trump Foundation, which he said in a statement Saturday he plans to dissolve (although he can’t do so while New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office is investigating the foundation).

Trump has about 39 million combined followers across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, which, Spicer said, “allows him to add an element of a conversation that’s never occurred.”

“He can put his thoughts out and hear what they’re thinking in a way that no one’s ever been able to do before,” said Spicer, who will also serve as the White House communications director since transition aide Jason Miller backed out of the job. “I mean, he does communicate in a much bigger way than there’s ever been before, and I think that’s gonna be just a really exciting part of the job.”

Congressional Republicans are already wary of Trump’s tweets being directed their way, apprehension that could spur them into action on his legislative agenda after years of stagnation with a Democratic president.

“I don’t think people are used to having a president that can reach into their districts the way that I think Donald Trump can,” Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole told CNN on Tuesday. “I mean, he’s very popular with the Republican base. And a guy that can sit there and tweet out of the White House and generate several thousand calls to your office is somebody you ought to take pretty seriously, because I suspect he’s gonna be very serious about pushing his agenda.”

Trump, who has not held a press conference since July, suggested in a post-election interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he will be “very restrained” on Twitter once he’s sworn in as president — “if I use it at all.”

“There should be nothing you should be ashamed of. It’s — it’s where it’s at,” he said, crediting his social media platforms for his primary and general election wins. www.politico.com