The TOI Correspondent from Washington: The President of the United States was up in the middle of the night Sunday agitated about his portrait that Colorado, a Democrat-run state, had put in its legislative building.
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” he fumed in a 2 a.m social media post.
He said that the unnamed artist “must have lost talent as she got older” because she had also done a portrait of President Obama before and “he looks wonderful.”
“In any event, I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one, but many people from Colorado have called and written to complain. In fact, they are actually angry about it!”he complained, before concluding that he would be speaking on their behalf to the Radical Left Governor, Jared Polis, “who is extremely weak on Crime, in particular with respect to Tren de Aragua (a Venezuelan gang), which practically took over Aurora (Don’t worry, we saved it!), to take it down. Jared should be ashamed of himself!”
He then moved on to unload on the CBS news program 60 Minutes, which he said is now “highly discredited” while wondering why “it would be doing a total “puff piece” on George Clooney, a second-rate movie “star,” and failed political pundit.” Clooney, he reflected, “fought hard for Sleepy Joe’s election and then, right after the Debate, dumped him like a dog.”
“Later, I assume under orders from the Obama camp, pushed all out for “Kamala,” only to soon realize that that was not going to work out too well…And now George Clooney again? His press agent should be making a fortune!!!” he mused in the 2 a.m post, before unloading on “The Failing New York Times” for “insisting on using “Liddle’ Peter Baker, a really bad writer and Obama biographer and sycophant, to write many of the long and boring Fake News hit pieces against me.”
“The only two people with less talent than Peter are his “wife,” the lovely Susan Glasser, and, of course, Maggot Hagerman, who may be the least talented writer in the entire stable of New York Times’ MEDIOCRITY!” Trump said in a familiar putdown of women reporters, willfully distorting Maggie Haberman’s name. “There’s something really wrong with these people, and their SICK, TRUMP DERANGED EDITORS. They did everything within their power to help rig the Election against me. How did that work out???” he asked triumphantly.
Even by his own standards, it was a remarkable feat of venting that many people find puzzling, but his MAGA base finds endearing. Such smackdowns form a core part of his average 24 social media posts per day, mostly on his platform Truth Social where his faithful then relay and celebrate on X, formerly Twitter. Media experts have calculated that he spends anywhere from two to six hours posting on social media and watching news television every day, with a pronounced interest in viewership and ratings given his past role as a tv host.
More bemusing is the timing of his posts, many coming late at night or in the week hours, like Sunday night-Monday morning crop. In interviews, Trump has said he needs very little sleep, once telling CNN’s Dr Sanjay Gupta he feels great on even 3-4 hours of sleep. He also dictates some social media posts to his aides — most notably seen when he was watching Kamala Harris during her DNC speech.
But last night he was clearly on his own, railing about judges and journalists, actors and activists, in a torrent that stopped for a few hours. In the morning, he announced a 25 per cent tariff on any country that buys oil and gas from Venezuela.