Trump's Trials - State Department will delete X posts from before Trump returned to office

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

The State Department is removing all posts on its public accounts on the social media platform X made before President Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, 2025. NPR's Shannon Bond reports. Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Scott Detrow and you're listening to Trump's terms from NPR. We're under invasion from within. If you're not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will. We all serve at the pleasure of the president. The golden age of America is upon us. We are in the golden age. Each episode, we bring you the latest news about the 47th president and the policy changes he is pursuing on his own terms.

We know from experience that means challenging precedent, busting norms, and pushing against set ideas about what the federal government can and can't do. It all raises questions about how much Washington and the country will change over the course of this term. NPR is covering it all in stories like the one you are about to hear right after this. You're listening to Trump's terms from NPR. I'm Michelle Martin in New York City. A new state department policy is raising fresh concerns about government transparency. The department is removing posts from its official accounts on the social media platform

X, posts made before President Trump returned to office in 2025. The posts will be internally archived, the State Department confirmed to NPR, but they will no longer be easily accessible to the public. NPR, Shannon, and is with us now to tell us more about it. Good morning, Shannon. Good morning, Michelle. Tell us more about the details of these changes. Yeah, so the State Department is scrubbing posts that were made up to the day that President Trump was inaugurated for the second time. And staff were told that anyone who wants to go back and see older posts, you know, say from the other

Obama administration, the Biden, or the first Trump terms, will have to file a freedom of Information Act request. And, you know, as journalists know, that can be a very slow and bureaucratic process. Now, that's according to an employee who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. And, Michelle, this is a change that would really be quite different from how the government typically archives the online footprint of previous administrations. You know, those records usually remain in public view. Could you say more about how this has worked in the past for people who don't know? Yeah. So many federal agencies, including the state. Department. You know, they have social media accounts. The State Department has quite a few. They have

ones for embassies for officials like the Secretary of State, ambassadors, programs, bureaus. And previously, when the administration changed over, the new people in charge, you know, take control of the social media account, but, you know, they leave what's previously posted there. That is different for some high-profile accounts. So if you take the POTUS handle on X, that's what's used by the president. That is handed over to the incoming president. Old posts are moved to a publicly available archive account. A publicly available archive account. Okay.

So why is the State Department making this change? Did they tell you? Well, a State Department spokesperson told us that the leadership wants to, quote, speak with one voice on social media and that they want to, quote, limit confusion on U.S. government policy. And it's true, Michelle, you know, when you scroll back through this X timeline and you can go back, you know, to 2015, it can be very striking to see how messaging has changed under different administrations. But as one retired diplomat pointed out, these accounts provide a day-to-day record of diplomacy as it's happening, and that's valuable for historians and the public to see. Now, the State Department did not respond to our specific questions about whether there will be ways for the public to access archive posts without having to go through filing a Freedom of Information Act request. And as minor as this change might sound, it's really troubling to many people who worry it's going to make the historical record of the government's communications and actions over time. harder to trace, and there's worries that it could be adopted more widely across agencies.

And how does this fit in with the way this Trump administration handles information more broadly? Yeah, I mean, we have seen the Trump administration take down information from government websites, often information that conflicts with the president's views. So that includes environmental and health data. It's removed signs at national parks that mentions slavery. The National Portrait Gallery removed references to Trump's impeachment after the administration repeatedly pressured the museum. And so deleting the State Department's posts on X, it appears to be less about those kind of ideological differences. I think it sounds much more about control of future messaging.

And so what I would say, this broader pattern this fits into, this administration really cares about social media. It really believes that the message it puts out is reality. That is NPR Shannon Bond, who, as we said, broke this story. Shannon, thank you. Thanks, Michelle. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find out. find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every

weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.