John Kelly’s losing battle with Trump’s Twitter feed

While chief of staff John Kelly has taken steps to control information in and out of the Oval Office, the president still uses the service to scan fringe websites that pop up in his mentions.

By Annie Karni @ Politico.com, Updated 11/29/2017 07:25 PM

[....] Twitter has allowed the president to continue accessing fringe websites and viewing racist videos simply by scanning his “mentions,” according to two former aides who have observed how he uses the site. Trump doesn’t use the direct-message function on the website, which would allow people he follows to privately share links with him — but he often looks at tweets that mention his handle, and picks up links and videos there.

The conversation on Twitter often then dictates his thinking. “Everybody’s talking about this,” he will tell his top aides in the West Wing, referring to a clip or an article he saw circulating among the small group of Twitter users he follows [.....]

People close to Trump said that while his longtime aide and social media director Dan Scavino and his eldest son, Donald Trump, Jr., in the past have been responsible for sharing with the president more inflammatory content and articles from alt-right websites, Wednesday’s tweets were posted before 7 a.m. — earlier in the morning that Scavino typically interacts with the president. It appeared the videos came across the president’s feed via conservative activist Ann Coulter, one of the 45 individuals whom Trump follows on Twitter, who had retweeted one of the videos herself the day before.

Trump’s anti-Muslim tweets were followed by an unsubstantiated allegation against “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough, accusing him of being involved in an “unsolved mystery” in Florida that Trump said needed more investigating. The post was widely seen as a reference to the 2001 death of a former Scarborough aide, from the days when the morning television personality still served in Congress.

Together, the president’s active morning on Twitter raised new questions about Kelly’s influence – and what impact can the retired four-star Marine general can exert when the president is determined to set his own agenda [....]