Trump's Trials - Trump's Truth Social lays bare narrow obsessions of an extremely online president

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Ten years, one Twitter ejection, one Twitter return, and a move to Truth Social later, Trump's posts still make news – like when he announces a war or tries to pick a fight with the pope – but for many have become the background noise of American politics. NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben reports. Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

I'm Scott Detrow, and this is Trump's terms from NPR. Every episode, we bring you one story from NPR's coverage of the Trump administration with the focus on actions and policies that take the presidency into uncharted territory. Here's the latest from NPR. From NPR news, I'm Lela Falded. During his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump's Twitter feed seemed inescapable. His chaotic post hijacked news cycles. More than 10 years later than the president's social media.

Posts are a daily fact of life. Some become major stories, like when he insulted the Pope or when he mocked Islam and used an expletive on Easter morning. But most of his thousands of posts can be hard to keep up with. So NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben wanted to know what he's saying when many people aren't paying attention. And she analyzed months of truth social posts to tell us what he's been saying. And she joins me now. Hey, Danielle. Good morning. So how did you go about this project? Well, with the help of our data visualization team at NPR, I compiled the first four months of Trump's truth social posts this year into one spreadsheet. That's more than 2,000 posts. And then I went through one by one and categorized them. I looked at topic. So is this post about Iran?

Is it about Greenland, about the ballroom? And also the type of post. Is any given post an endorsement? Is it an attack? Is it just a repost? Okay. So a lot of work there. What did you find?

Well, first off, it's no surprise that our president is extremely online. We all knew that. But what's striking is the scope of the onlineness. He's been averaging around 19 posts per day. And a lot of them are videos or pictures he's grabbing from social media site X. So he's apparently got his eyes on both social networks and maybe more. Now, as for topics, none are super surprising. His top areas are current elections, like when he endorses a candidate. He also posts a lot about Iran and the economy. But really, a big point to this project was to get a sense of where his attention is. What do you mean?

Well, I looked at March 1st as an example. That's the day after the U.S. bombed Iran. That day, he, yes, posted about the war, but he also posted, for example, a video making fun of Mitch McConnell. He made a dozen posts showing other people praising his State of the Union address, a speech that had happened five days earlier. He also posted an article from 2024 about how Lady Gaga's father endorsed him in the presidential election. So he had a lot of things on his mind that day. And if you zoom out from there, you see even more about where his attention is broadly. He posted more than 70 times this year about how he still thinks the 2020 election was rigged. Of course, that is a lie. And that's more than he posted about tariffs, more than he even posted about the SAVE Act, which is a bill he's been relentlessly promoting.

it would require voter ID, among other things. One more example. He posted about agriculture and farmers four times over those four months. That's less than half as often as he posted about comedian Bill Maher. So again, maybe it's not surprising how much his attention is on his grievances, but it's really telling to see it quantified. You know, Trump doesn't just post about grievances or share other people's praise online. He also announces official business on social media, nominations, tariffs, developments in the war. with Iran. What effect does his posting have on the real world? Well, of course, it depends on the

topic and what he's saying. At the very least, like with tariffs, it's introduced massive unpredictability into the business world. I should add here that Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, has told us that in response to my questions, that truth social is, quote, the most powerful and popular social media platform in the world because it serves as President Trump's authentic voice. But I talked to John Bowman. who was national security advisor during Trump's first term. And he said he thinks the president's posting is negatively affecting Iran negotiations. The very ferocity of his tweets, just tell the Iranians, if we just be patient a little while longer,

he's just going to flip right out entirely. And he wants out, so we're going to drag it out and get every concession we can from him. I don't understand why he can't see that. So Trump's posts, yeah, they have serious consequences. If you want to know more, you can read NPR's Danielle Kerr's. It's Laban's full story on the thousands of posts you went through at npr.org. Danielle, thanks for doing this work. Of course.

And before we wrap up, a thank you to our NPR Plus supporters who hear each show without sponsored messages and, of course, who help protect independent journalism. If you are not a supporter yet, you can visit plusnpr.npr.org to find out how you can get a ton of podcast perks across dozens of NPR shows, like bonus episodes, exclusive merchandise, and more. Again, that's plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.