Nobody delivers a burn quite as hot as President Barack Obama.
Appearing at Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s Florida campaign rally on Sunday, Obama mocked Republican Donald Trump after reports that his own staffers had seized his Twitter account.
Watch Obama tease Trump for reportedly having his Twitter taken away by his campaign pic.twitter.com/Bj9CmBTsm4
— Business Insider (@BusinessInsider) November 7, 2016
Earlier that day the New York Times reported how Trump’s personal feed, which throughout his campaign has been an unfettered thread of provocative musings and aggressive chest-beating, was finally wrestled from him by Republican aides in a bid to prevent any kind of last-minute self-sabotaging.
“Now, if somebody can’t handle a Twitter account, they can’t handle the nuclear codes,” Obama said. “If somebody starts tweeting at three in the morning because SNL made fun of you, then you can’t handle the nuclear codes.”
Watched Saturday Night Live hit job on me.Time to retire the boring and unfunny show. Alec Baldwin portrayal stinks. Media rigging election!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2016
If Gawker’s @RealRealDonaldTrump Twitter bot is anything to go by, then it has been at over two weeks since the presidential nominee has had control of his account. The bot was designed by Gawker Labs and filters out only the tweets sent from Trump’s android phone. The last tweet it processed went out on Oct. 20:
https://twitter.com/RealRealDonaldT/status/789117933255557120
While Trump’s notorious and uncensored ramblings remain online for all to see, it appears that caustic outbursts or late-night rants have indeed come to an end. Since the beginning of November, the Republican nominee’s feed has been reduced to an exhaustively repetitive list of formulaic and generic campaign PR tweets.
“They had so little confidence in his self-control,” Obama quipped at the Florida rally before launching into a prolonged critique.
“If you disrespect women before you became president, you’ll do so once you’re president. … If you accept the support of Klan sympathizers before you’re president, then you’ll accept their support after you’re president. … If you disrespect the Constitution when you’re running for president, then you are even more likely to disrespect it even when you swear to uphold that Constitution.”
Despite the strategic intent, it appears that this last minute Hail Mary attempt by the Republican Party to save Trump from himself has, in actuality, only served into the hands of Democrats and satirists:
Trump dismisses claims that he is blocked from Twitter, shows off new phone given to him by staff @ThePoke pic.twitter.com/8DO0UagIDX
— Hopeless Surfer (@HopelessSurfer) November 7, 2016