The President of the United States is a notorious tweeter. He has 29 million followers, and has tweeted almost 35,000 times. But he only follows 45 people – largely people that agree with him, such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.
Were Trump following his Twitter stream after he fired FBI Director James Comey, he would have found very few voices that disagree with him.
When the news broke
The first mention of Comey’s dismissal on Trump’s Twitter stream was from Greta Van Susteren, formerly of Fox and now at MSNBC – a tweet that played it straight, broke the news and encouraged her audience to turn to her network.
That was quickly followed, however, by a tweet from Sean Hannity, “Comey Fired!!! Finally.” And that’s where the long list of affirmations begin.
Tweets from Laura Ingraham, Geraldo Rivera, and YouTube personalities Diamond and Silk followed – all praising the President’s actions.
The first tweet that can be construed as questioning the President’s actions came from Ann Coulter, about 45 minutes after the news broke. But it appears to be a tongue-in-cheek post from Coulter: “Comey firing is a red herring to distract from the fact that Trump hasn’t started building the wall.”
Trump once followed MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mike Brzezinksi but unfollowed them in March. Had he still been following them, he would have seen a slew of tweets from Scarborough describing Comey’s firing as an “abuse of power” and retweets including a tweet from CNBC’s John Harwood, who wrote, “Nixon, who told Americans “I’m not a crook,” fired someone investigating him and, instead of extending his tenure, ended up shortening it.”
Primetime
At 9 p.m., Bill O’Reilly, formerly of Fox News, tweeted audio of “instant analysis” from his car. He said he was “going out to a nice dinner here in Manhattan.” O’Reilly reserved his judgment but warned his listeners to be wary of “partisan garbage” suggesting that Comey was fired because of the Russia investigation.
At 10:42 p.m., Trump sent his first tweet after firing Comey.
The next morning
As morning came, the team at Fox and Friends began tweeting. “Williams: Firing Comey ‘important way of FBI regaining credibility,’” one read. “Former DC Attorney: ‘Out of control’ Comey ‘acted like he was attorney general,’” read another.
Of the 30 or so tweets sent from the account, only two portrayed Trump’s move as anything but positive. Both were quotes from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who said that Trump had “badly shattered” the criminal justice system by firing Comey.
From the time the Comey news broke on Tuesday evening to 9:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, the accounts President Trump follows sent 138 tweets about Comey’s firing. Only 11 of the 138tweets can be construed as portraying the President’s decision less than enthusiastically.
In addition to the Coulter and the Fox tweets mentioned above, most of the negative tweets involved quoting others who had criticized Trump, for instance Tucker Carlson’s quoting a Democratic strategist who appeared on his show.
Read Trump’s full Twitter stream here.
Alexandra Larkin contributed to this report
