President Barack Obama on Sunday mocked Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for having his Twitter access taken away by his campaign staff, who hope to minimize the real estate mogul’s frequent social media ramblings in the last days before the election.
“Apparently, his campaign has taken away his Twitter,” Obama said, speaking at a Hillary Clinton rally in Kissimmee, Florida. “In the last two days, they had so little confidence in his self-control, that they said, ‘We’re just going to take away your Twitter.’”
“Now, if somebody can’t handle a Twitter account,” he continued, to audience laughter, “they can’t handle the nuclear codes. If somebody starts tweeting at 3 in the morning because ‘SNL’ made fun of you, then you can’t handle the nuclear codes.”
Trump’s campaign has reined in the candidate’s freewheeling and often late-night Twitter rants in the final days of the election, hoping to keep him disciplined and on message.
An anecdote from a Sunday New York Times story about the campaign’s final days noted that Trump’s press team has taken full control of the feed, editing his tweets before posting them.
Previously, Trump’s tweets have included anything from insulting Hillary Clinton and other rivals, getting into fights with his critics, spreading conspiracy theories, and, as Obama noted, objecting to Alec Baldwin’s impersonation of him on “Saturday Night Live.”
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
