Like His Father, Donald Trump Jr. Uses Twitter to Target the Media – New York Times

Mr. Trumps social media presence can be a strange stew of family, politics and simmering anger. Like his father, the younger Mr. Trump sees social media as a way to circumvent the media that he thinks is not properly serving readers and viewers. By so flagrantly picking sides, Mr. Trump said in an interview this week, theyre forcing people to go to other places to watch.

Mr. Trump, 39, is used to doing battle on his fathers behalf. He was the one who carried out the firing of Mr. Trumps first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.

He said he was still frustrated by some of his fathers aides: I think hes being served well by some people. Other people, less so, he said.

Since assuming management of the Trump Organization with his brother Eric Mr. Trump has been an infrequent presence in the White House, attending events like the Easter Egg Roll and his fathers birthday. But the Trumps are still able to close ranks from afar.

Both father and son use Twitter as a digital flogging machine when they sense that someone has treated them unfairly. The family resemblance was on display this week after CNN a perennial news nemesis quickly retracted a story about a Trump campaign aides business ties to Russia and accepted the resignations of three journalists. The network was also forced to defend the actions of a producer who criticized the networks news coverage the producer had been speaking to someone wearing a hidden camera.

The Trumps pounced.

Wow, CNN had to retract big story on Russia, with 3 employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS! the president wrote at 6:30 in the morning on Tuesday.

Hey mainstream media, which one of you will actually report on this @CNN story this morning? Be balanced and fair!!! his eldest son chimed in a few hours later.

In some cases, conservatives have been reaching out directly to the younger Mr. Trump, asking him to jump in and fight. Political violence has been a preoccupation of Mr. Trumps. The episode in which the comedian Kathy Griffin held up what looked like the presidents severed head was a particular source of outrage.

Twitter allowed me to call her out immediately for her vile, sick, disgusting actions, Mr. Trump said. It brought attention to a serious issue that would have been glossed over otherwise. Social media, if used properly, is a fantastic tool to redefine the conversation in our terms.

Mr. Trump, who divides his time between Manhattan and a property upstate, seems to speak the language of conservatives most naturally. He is an avid hunter whose closest friends are not considered New York elite, but are people who enjoy the outdoors and are gun enthusiasts. This makes him as much his fathers ambassador to Middle America and a broader swath of conservatives as anyone.

As of late Ive probably taken more of a role in it of my own volition, Mr. Trump said of confronting critics, noting he is not working in concert with the White House. Im watching from the outside.

During sensitive times, the Republican National Committee has asked Mr. Trump to step in as a pinch-hitter when his father has been advised not to tweet. When James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, testified before the Senate in early June, the younger Mr. Trump coordinated with the national committee to push back against Mr. Comeys testimony. When Mr. Comey testified that the president had mentioned closing the federal investigation into contact between Russian officials and Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trumps former national security adviser, Mr. Trump took to Twitter.

Hoping and telling are two very different things, Mr. Trump wrote, you would think that a guy like Comey would know that. #givemeabreak

Lindsay Jancek, the deputy communications director for the national committee, said in an interview that there was frequent communication between the organization and Mr. Trump. The committee sends him messaging materials, including thoughts for posts, for him to consider sharing to his 1.7 million Twitter followers. That following has grown from about 700,000 since the presidential campaign began in earnest. Ms. Jancek called the work done during the Comey hearing very successful in driving a narrative and pushing back.

Mr. Trump has said he gets the national committee talking points or sometimes his friends share tweets, but that his own posts are not made at anyones behest. He has his own way of leaping into action: On Thursday, when his father drew swift backlash for using Twitter to crudely attack Mika Brzezinski, the co-host of the MSNBC show Morning Joe, Mr. Trump did not issue a defense but used the episode as another opportunity to attack CNN.

The message is working with millennials, according to Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, an activist group for young conservatives. Mr. Kirk, who interacts frequently with Mr. Trump on Twitter, said that members across the groups 1,100 college and high school campuses were avid followers of Mr. Trumps Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, which tend to showcase his hunting prowess and dedication to his wife and five children.

As we work to grow the party and attract younger voters, Mr. Kirk, 23, wrote in an email, having strong, confident, funny, and respected voices like Donald Trump Jr. is a tremendous asset.

Mr. Trump also frequently interacts with prominent conservatives, and acknowledged that there are some people he has retweeted or praised who have flagged conspiracy theories. In April, he suggested that Mike Cernovich, a writer known for promoting false claims that Hillary Clinton was part of a pedophile ring located in the basement of a pizzeria, deserved a Pulitzer Prize for using shaky anonymous sourcing to report on the White House.

Mr. Trump said that a tweet of support for people who promote conspiracy theories was not an endorsement of everything that that person has ever said or done.

He said: That doesnt mean that one individual thought, though, is any less right or shouldnt be an issue.

Despite raising his public profile as a pugilistic defender of the president, Mr. Trump said he had no plans to follow his fathers path into politics.

For the time being, he said, I think Im much more effective doing what Im doing.

Go here to read the rest:

Like His Father, Donald Trump Jr. Uses Twitter to Target the Media - New York Times