Trump’s Reality Social : NPR

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On March 1, the day after U.S. forces bombed Iran and commenced a battle that is now greater than 9 weeks lengthy, President Trump posted 30 instances on Reality Social.

Simply after midnight, he posted concerning the bombing marketing campaign, together with a menace to retaliate if Iran itself retaliated (“THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT”).

However he quickly had much more on his thoughts; mid-morning, he posted a video portraying Senator Mitch McConnell because the floppy, deceased Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s.

He posted a Tiktok video praising his State of the Union – a speech he had given 5 days prior – then reposted that video, together with a screenshot of a put up on the social media web site X. Simply after midday, he posted an replace on the battle (“we’ve got destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, a few of them comparatively giant and necessary”). Mid-afternoon, he posted a string of Trump-friendly information protection, together with a New York Publish article from September 2024 about how Girl Gaga’s father endorsed Trump within the presidential race. Shortly thereafter, within the span of 5 minutes, he posted 10 instances, all of them lists of screenshots of reward from X customers for his State of the Union handle. He later posted a video replace concerning the battle in Iran, adopted by a video marked as being from an Instagram consumer known as @truthaboutfluoride, purporting to indicate San Francisco as a run-down metropolis full of poverty.

Throughout his first presidential marketing campaign, Trump’s fixed stream of seemingly unvetted tweets was a sideshow that rapidly grew to become inescapable – the boasts, insults, and lies at instances hijacked information cycles. As soon as he was elected, they offered a brand new frontier in American politics: a real-time view right into a president’s thoughts.

Ten years, one Twitter ejection, one Twitter return, and a transfer to Reality Social later, Trump’s posts nonetheless make information – like when he pronounces a battle or tries to choose a battle with the pope – however for a lot of have develop into the background noise of American politics.

The president of the USA is now speaking with the general public typically dozens of instances a day on a social media platform that he himself created, and most Individuals (and even perhaps journalists) by no means see most of these posts. In fact, most of these posts will not be individually newsworthy. However them collectively offers an image of precisely what, within the mixture, the president of the USA is considering and saying to the world in any respect hours.

To attempt to grasp that, NPR analyzed the primary 4 months of Trump’s Reality Social posts this yr. What emerged is a portrait of a particularly on-line president with scattered focus – who, even whereas he handled fallout from his insurance policies similar to battle in Iran and immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, was additionally busy insulting his critics, posting photos of his proposed ballroom, and persevering with to insist on the lie that he gained the 2020 election. The president additionally has unorthodox posting habits that illustrate that, whilst arguably probably the most highly effective individual on earth, he stays targeted on how he’s seen.

What the president is posting about

To quantitatively analyze the president’s posts, NPR compiled the president’s first 4 months of posts, utilizing a knowledge scraper maintained by CNN. We then categorised every put up primarily based on its subject (tariffs, the battle in Iran, Greenland) and the kind of put up it was (sharing a information story, reposting another person, making a menace).

Trump posted 2,249 instances within the first 4 months of 2026, a median of just below 19 posts per day.

The commonest subject Trump posted about – at about 14% of his posts – was 2026 elections. These posts – greater than 300 of them – consist largely of both candidate endorsements or posts touting a Trump-backed candidate’s win.

Nonetheless, Trump at instances didn’t give a easy endorsement, as an alternative including assaults on an endorsee’s opponents. For instance, in endorsing Republican candidates for the Indiana state Senate, the posts grew to become paragraph-long screeds as Trump attacked sitting senators as “RINOs” (Republicans in title solely) in the event that they voted in opposition to a Trump-backed redistricting plan.

The subsequent commonest matters after elections had been Iran (247 posts) and the economic system (177). He additionally posted dozens of instances about alleged fraud in Minnesota’s security web applications, the SAVE Act, and his perception that the justice system was weaponized in opposition to him.

To the diploma that his posts measure what he is serious about, the president’s social media feed suggests he’s as preoccupied – or much more so – together with his private tasks and vendettas than he’s with urgent coverage issues.

President Trump posted concerning the 2020 election 71 instances within the first 4 months of 2026, greater than he posted even about tariffs (57 instances – all of which we coded as a subset of posts concerning the economic system). These 2020 election posts all promoted the lie that by way of huge voter fraud or different malfeasance, Joe Biden stole that election.

Trump posted 68 instances about his numerous Washington, D.C., constructing tasks, together with his White Home ballroom and a proposed huge arch throughout the Potomac close to Arlington Nationwide Cemetery. That is barely greater than he posted about Venezuela, greater than he posted concerning the SAVE Act he is selling, and greater than he posted about protesters and federal brokers in Minneapolis, together with federal brokers killing two U.S. residents.

He posted greater than six instances as typically (105) about his numerous authorized grievances than he did about healthcare coverage (17).

Additionally notable are the matters that get little consideration. Whereas tariffs and the battle in Iran do have an effect on, for instance, the farm economic system, Trump posted simply 4 instances particularly about American farming throughout the first 4 months of the yr – lower than half as many instances as he posted (9 instances) about his anger at comic Invoice Maher.

As for the highest varieties of posts, the most important class – at just below one-quarter of his posts – are social media reshares. These take a number of codecs – some are screenshots of posts from X, and others are movies reposted from different social media websites, similar to TikTok.

This emphasizes the technological variations between now and Trump’s first time period.

Close to the tip of his first time period, the movies Trump posted had been largely from Fox Information or different right-leaning information shops, or they had been movies produced by the White Home.

Now, there’s an countless array of TikTok and Instagram movies and memes the president can repost, a lot of them from amateurs or generated by AI. Some have been outright offensive, as when he posted a racist video that depicted former President Obama and Michelle Obama as apes. The White Home initially defended the video, with White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters, “Please cease the pretend outrage.” Trump later mentioned he hadn’t seen the total video, telling reporters, “I regarded in the beginning of it. It was high-quality.” He didn’t apologize, and the put up was later deleted.

Different posts have promoted conspiracy theories, as with a video that baselessly proposed that Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was concerned within the 2025 killing of Minnesota Democratic State Rep. Melissa Hortman.

Sometimes, these movies don’t have anything to do with present occasions, and even Trump, however are the type of inane posts littering many individuals’s Fb feeds. Round 11 p.m. one evening in February, Trump posted a TikTok video of an individual’s pet corgi reacting to a can of Reddi-wip. A minute later, he reposted that video together with a screenshot of a supporter’s X put up (“Good Evening Patriot Pals!”). A minute after that, he posted a 15-second video of Bruce Lee preventing, which he equally reposted alongside one other X screenshot seconds later.

Reposting materials from X

This posting-then-reposting sample is without doubt one of the extra notable oddities of the president’s Reality Social posts. It seems to be a makeshift means of reposting issues from X. The president recurrently grabs, for instance, a video another person has posted on X, posts it with out attribution on Reality Social, then instantly quote-posts his personal put up together with a screenshot of the unique X put up.

A few of these reposts are about present occasions, however they cowl many different matters as nicely – they embody a wide range of amateur-made movies praising Trump, attacking his enemies, and (incorrectly) concurring together with his false declare that he the truth is gained the 2020 election. In latest months, Trump has reposted a video compilation of moments together with his grandkids, a video about his loyalty to Michael Jackson through the years, a montage of Trump moments set to a choral association of “Like a Prayer,” and an apparently AI-generated video of Trump taking part in hockey in opposition to Canadian hockey gamers – and punching the bejeezus out of considered one of them.

The sample of snagging content material from X highlights two necessary information about Reality Social.

One is that X seems to dwarf it in dimension. The Heart for Marketing campaign Innovation, a right-leaning political technique group, supplied NPR with polling from across the 2024 election, discovering that solely 6% of individuals used Reality Social for information on even a weekly foundation. That is in comparison with 30% who used X.

Trump could subsequently go to X to get materials as a result of there are simply extra customers there, and particularly extra massive names like politicians, information organizations, and MAGA influencers.

Secondly, Reality Social’s smaller dimension means it serves a unique function for Trump than Twitter ever did, earlier than Trump was kicked off of the platform after the January 6 riot. (His account was ultimately reinstated.)

“I believe actually one of the simplest ways to grasp it’s that is the place you get your marching orders in case you’re MAGA,” mentioned Eric James Wilson, a Republican strategist and government director of the Heart for Marketing campaign Innovation. “And too, it’s direct communication from him, in the way in which that possibly a press release, an administration coverage or a press launch must undergo a number of layers of, if not revisions, actually approvals.”

Leavitt informed NPR in a press release that Reality Social is “probably the most highly effective and common social media platform on this planet as a result of it serves as President Trump’s genuine voice.”

One restriction has saved Trump from merely posting on X when he desires an even bigger viewers – in accordance with particulars a few licensing settlement in a 2023 SEC submitting, he’s “typically obligated to make any social media put up on TruthSocial and will not make the identical put up on one other social media web site for six hours.” This provides the positioning “restricted time to profit from” his postings.

NPR emailed Reality Social’s press staff to test if this settlement remains to be in impact, however the e mail bounced again.

It is not completely clear how most of the posts on the president’s Reality Social account come instantly from him. Leavitt additionally informed NPR that some posts are made by staffers.

“President Trump posts in any respect hours as a result of he’s always working, however typically these posts are additionally printed by workers who’re merely catching up on the numerous articles and studying supplies President Trump approves the day prior,” she mentioned in one other assertion.

It is not simply information articles that the White Home says Trump is not personally posting; after backlash to the racist video depicting the Obamas the White Home additionally mentioned a staffer “erroneously” posted the video.

Outdated information

Some of the telling indicators of what is on Trump’s thoughts may be discovered within the information articles he posts – greater than 1 in 5 of the president’s social media posts within the first 4 months of this yr had been information articles, op-eds, and movies. These information items virtually uniformly reward the president or promote administration-friendly storylines, together with persecuting his perceived enemies.

On March 29, in a span of six minutes, his account posted 10 information items about felony referrals in opposition to New York Lawyer Basic Letitia James, who prosecuted Trump in a civil enterprise fraud case.

A considerable variety of the information tales Trump’s account posts will not be present. No less than 1 in 4 of the information tales posted had been greater than 10 days previous on the time he posted them (the dates of some TV information clips couldn’t be simply verified).

In some circumstances, such because the article about Girl Gaga’s father, the information items had been months previous. At different instances, he posted a number of older articles in speedy succession about the identical occasion. On March 16, Trump posted three January articles in a row concerning the crowd on the Faculty Soccer Nationwide Championship sport cheering for him.

Leavitt informed NPR in a press release: “The President is awfully nicely learn, and he likes to share tales or content material that he finds fascinating on his account.”

The issue with bluster

Within the first 4 months of the yr, President Trump made 98 posts we categorised as “bulletins” – which we outlined because the president purporting to provide the general public new info.

These lined a spread of matters – there was the video saying the U.S. had bombed Iran. There was the announcement of a brand new DHS secretary nominee – Markwayne Mullin. There have been bulletins about catastrophe assist to states affected by an enormous winter storm. There have been notifications of upcoming interviews or press conferences. Not all of those announcement posts turned out to be correct, nonetheless, as with an April 17 put up declaring the Strait of Hormuz to be “COMPLETELY OPEN AND READY FOR BUSINESS AND FULL PASSAGE.”

He additionally made 29 posts we categorised as “threats.” These vary from the particular (“If Canada makes a cope with China, it can instantly be hit with a 100% Tariff”) to the obscure (“I’m wondering what would occur if we ‘completed off’ what’s left of the Iranian Terror State”). The president hasn’t adopted by way of on all of those threats with concrete motion.

Altogether, that is 127 of Trump’s most newsmaking posts – round one per day. These posts have launched an unprecedented unpredictability into presidential policymaking. His tariff coverage posts, for instance, have created widespread uncertainty within the enterprise world.

This could make life in a Trump White Home significantly troublesome, particularly within the realm of international coverage. John Bolton, who served as Nationwide Safety Advisor in Trump’s first time period, tells a narrative about Trump’s chaotic posts.

“My deputy was there when [Trump] was proven – that is in 2019 – overhead photos of a failed Iranian missile launch,” Bolton says. “And he mentioned to the intelligence briefer, can I preserve this image? And she or he mentioned, ‘Nicely, sure, however it’s very delicate, Mr. President.’ He mentioned, ‘Okay.’ And about 20 minutes after they left, he tweeted the image out with a number of the markings nonetheless on the image.”

As NPR later reported, the photograph was revealed to be categorised. Consultants informed NPR that tweeting the image probably helped America’s adversaries, together with Iran and Russia, as a result of it revealed U.S. satellite tv for pc capabilities.

Since his time within the first Trump administration, Bolton has been prepared to sharply criticize the president. In October, the Trump Division of Justice obtained indictments in opposition to Bolton on 18 expenses alleging that he unlawfully retained and transmitted categorised paperwork. Bolton pleaded not responsible.

Bolton sees Trump tweeting the image as half of a bigger sample: to try most bluster and within the course of reveal greater than he intends to. Trump’s latest posts concerning the battle in Iran are one other instance.

“The very ferocity of his tweets or the outrage you’ll be able to hear simply inform the Iranians ‘If we simply keep, if we simply be affected person a short while longer, he is simply going to flip proper out completely, and he desires out. So we will drag it out and get each concession we are able to from him,'” Bolton mentioned. “I do not perceive why he cannot see that.”

Pundits have theorized that together with his threatening posts about Iran, President Trump is training the “madman idea” of international relations. H.R. Haldeman, who served as chief of workers to President Nixon wrote that Nixon’s technique was to make the united statesS.R. and the federal government in North Vietnam suppose that the fervently anticommunist president was prepared to go to even excessive lengths, similar to dropping a nuclear bomb, to finish the Vietnam Conflict.

“Nixon had credibility. He was strongly anti-communist,” Bolton mentioned, including that communist adversaries might need thought, “Good God, that man is loopy sufficient that he would drop a nuclear weapon.”

“Simply being generically loopy doesn’t offer you a bonus,” Bolton added.

A president’s id on show

To some extent, the president’s posting may be seen as an extension of his communications technique of merely speaking lots. Trump recurrently does prolonged press gaggles within the Oval Workplace, and he additionally has the unprecedented behavior of fielding calls instantly from reporters who’ve his telephone quantity.

Nonetheless, with posts, in contrast to interviews, the president will not be having a dialog. Quite than being prompted by a reporter, the president in his posts seemingly reveals what’s on his thoughts at any given time. On April 2, the day he introduced that Pam Bondi can be leaving her put up as lawyer common, President Trump was additionally serious about Bruce Springsteen. He insulted the singer in two posts shared at 7:58 a.m. and 9:21 p.m. that day.

Certainly, the president’s insults and tirades have develop into so commonplace that they at instances do not get a lot discover. A few of these posts go on at size. On April 9, he wrote a greater than 2,700-character put up that insulted a collection of right-wing commentators but in addition veered into the matters of Iran, election outcomes, media shops he dislikes, and his approval ranking.

This type of bare fury from the president of the USA towards his perceived opponents (“NUT JOBS,” “TROUBLEMAKERS,” “low IQs,” “nasty”) may as soon as have made headlines.

In 2026, it is a Thursday.

Reality Social/Screenshot by NPR

NPR additionally analyzed the size of Trump’s posts this yr by way of the tip of April. He wrote 93 posts of 1,500 characters or extra in that point interval, accounting for round 4% of all his posts. About half of these are endorsements, by which the president praises his chosen candidates and at instances rails in opposition to the opponent (“DEFEAT Third Price Congressman Thomas Massie, a Weak and Pathetic RINO“). Many of those endorsements seem like variations on boilerplate language as Trump endorses a string of candidates in a brief timeframe.

The remainder of these lengthy posts are something however boilerplate – they’re typically assaults (“Pope Leo is WEAK ON CRIME“) and sometimes bulletins (“I’m nominating Kevin Warsh to be the CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM”).

Trump had extra of these ultra-long posts in April than in every other month. And in case you take out endorsements, it is much more stark. In April, Trump posted 22 extra-long posts about issues apart from endorsements – slamming Supreme Court docket justices, repeatedly selling his ballroom, and railing in opposition to specific media shops. That is twice as many such posts, or extra, as he had in every other month.

To the diploma, then, that the size of his posts correlates to Trump’s anger, or maybe enthusiasm, April was a very enthusiastic month for the president.

The president’s Reality Social account primarily will get extensive consideration when the president both makes an announcement or writes one thing significantly coarse or offensive.

That was the case on Easter morning this yr, at round 8:00 a.m., when President Trump threatened Iran.

“Tuesday can be Energy Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in a single, in Iran. There can be nothing prefer it!!! Open the F*****’ Strait, you loopy bastards, otherwise you’ll be residing in Hell – JUST WATCH! Reward be to Allah,” he wrote.

A menace of huge violence – and probably battle crimes – together with an obscenity and a tongue-in-cheek reward to Allah, all on considered one of Christianity’s holiest days, collectively had been gorgeous decisions for a president whose core supporters are white evangelical Christians.

In a latest NPR focus group of Georgia swing voters – individuals who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024 – nobody reacted positively to that put up. Individuals had been recognized by their first names as a situation of their participation. One voter named Joe mentioned that posts like that one encourage worry.

“It is not presidential. They’re alleged to be doing diplomatic negotiations. You understand, he is the agent of chaos in the case of this sort of factor. It simply – it scares me,” he mentioned. “He is a unfastened cannon, for my part, in the case of this sort of stuff.”

Brent Jones contributed to this report.