As he returns from his first trip abroad as US president, Donald Trump is reportedly considering a series of shakeups in the White House. This may include changes to his personnel and perhaps something even more unexpected: allowing a lawyer to vet his tweets.
“Everything is in play,” one advisor told the Wall Street Journal (paywall).
According to the Journal:
One major change under consideration would see the president’s social media posts vetted by a team of lawyers, who would decide if any needed to be adjusted or curtailed. The idea, said one of Mr. Trump’s advisers, is to create a system so that tweets “don’t go from the president’s mind out to the universe.”
Such a system would be a massive departure in protocol (or rather, lack thereof) for the businessman-turned-president, whose early morning tweet-storms have become infamous for stirring up controversy.
The Journal reported earlier this month that the US president’s aides had staged an “intervention” with the president about his Twitter habit, telling him that his practice of tweeting off the cuff could “paint him into a corner.”
Republican lawmakers, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, have urged the president to curtail his use of the platform. ”He knows, as you all know, that I’ve not been a fan of the tweets and the extracurricular comments,” McConnell told Reuters. “I said last week we could do with a little less drama.”
Whether or not Trump will sign on to a new Twitter strategy remains to be seen—but it does seem like an unlikely shift to many. “I would be shocked if he would agree to that,” former Trump campaign aide Barry Bennett told the Journal.
If all else fails, Trump could always just set them on fire.