Trump seeks Twitter sequel with return to X

Former President Trump is back on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, seeking to expand his audience at a time when he's losing ground to his new opponent, Vice President Harris. 

Trump had posted 18 times between Sunday morning and Tuesday evening on a host of topics to his 90 million followers on the site. 

The former president has used the site to blast Harris — at times dubbing her Comrade Kamala — on issues from inflation to fracking and the Middle East. In one missive, he complained that Harris was part of “one of the worst Presidencies in History, and she is definitely the Worst Vice President.” 

In another message — using his trademark all caps — he wrote, "NOVEMBER 5TH WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA!” 

The burst of posts is providing flashbacks to the days of Trump's presidency by tweet, in which entire news cycles developed based on the then-president's musings. 

“Returning to the platform signals Trump is making every effort to get back on offense when it comes to controlling the tone and tempo of the race,” said Kevin Madden, the longtime Republican strategist who served as a senior aide on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “The X platform is where he shifts media attention one tweet at a time.”

“The clicks he gets there sends a signal to his base around his core message, and drives additional media coverage with print, broadcast and cable news outlets,” Madden said. “He initiates and then manages his own media messages cycle.” 

But much has changed in the intervening years, many of which saw Trump off Twitter.

Trump's posts over the last few days haven’t generated as much coverage as they once did. That leaves some uncertainty over whether his series of posts will have the same effects on the body politic.

The former president returned to the platform formerly known as Twitter on Aug. 12, ahead of his interview with X owner Elon Musk. Trump, who was banned from the platform in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, had posted just once since his account was reinstated in November 2022.

Over the past two and a half years, Trump has instead posted on his platform Truth Social, which he created after he was banned from numerous social media sites following the Capitol riot.

However, he boasts a much larger audience on X, with 90 million followers, compared to 7.6 million followers on Truth Social.

Madden said Trump has spent the last month of the race — between Harris’s move to the top of the ticket and the Democratic National Convention — on defense. 

“If you measure Harris’s media coverage, both nationally and in regional markets against Trump’s, Harris has overwhelmingly received more attention,” Madden said. “Trump’s previous success, especially in 2016 and in his 2024 primary is directly related to his ability to block out the sun from his opponents and control the amount of media coverage in his favor.”

The Trump campaign said the former president’s use of X is part of his overarching outreach to the public. 

“While Kamala Harris continues to hide from the press, President Trump is bringing his winning messenger directly to the American people anytime, anyplace, anywhere,” said Caroline Sunshine, the deputy director of communications for the Trump campaign, adding that his recent steam on X “broke the internet” with more than 2 billion impressions.

“It’s undeniable when you look at those numbers and recent endorsements from RFK Jr. and [Tulsi] Gabbard that President Trump is reaching new voters and has the momentum in this race,” she said.

The Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign Friday and endorsed Trump. Gabbard, a former Democratic member of the House from Hawaii, is also backing Trump.  

Musk’s interview with Trump earlier this month was plagued by technical issues. The event was delayed for more than 40 minutes due to technical difficulties, which Musk blamed on a “massive” denial-of-service attack.

Susan Del Percio, a longtime Republican strategist, said Trump’s reemergence on the social media platform is notable. She cast it as part of a broader effort by both campaigns to reach voters during the final stretch of the campaign. 

While X has gone through changes in the past year after Musk’s takeover, “it’s kind of come back mainstream,” she said. 

Del Percio said Trump clearly recognizes that Harris is “killing it on social media, especially TikTok,” and so far, the former president, “is not using it as an effective tool.” 

“He’s using it as a rant rather than as a tool to win a campaign,” she said. 

Since taking over for President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, Harris has been able to tap into the online hype surrounding her campaign, embracing the “Brat” and “coconut tree” memes that went viral as the Democratic Party lined up behind the vice president.

“Until very recently, Trump was running against the incumbent sitting president. But now it feels like the candidate of change, the new candidate, is clearly Harris at this point,” said Joshua Tucker, professor of politics and co-director of New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics.

“She's new. Her internet strategy around coconut memes and these kinds of things feels new and exciting,” he added. “He is no longer the change candidate in this election.” 

Trump’s decision to rejoin the platform is likely driven by both political and financial incentives, Tucker noted. The former president has a massive financial stake in Truth Social, with about $2 billion in shares that cannot be sold until late September due to a six-month lockup provision.

He may no longer believe that using X will hurt the popularity of his platform, or he may have given up on it becoming successful, Tucker suggested.

“The reason he's probably back on Twitter is that at this point, he thinks the political advantages of going back on Twitter outweigh whatever financial costs he may be bearing by being back on Twitter and not being more exclusively on Truth Social,” Tucker said.

Since returning to X, Trump has continued to post on Truth Social. He currently still appears to be more active on his own platform than on X.

“President Trump is entitled to post various types of messages on other platforms, while Truth Social is proud to serve as the online home for his voice,” Truth Social spokesperson Shannon Devine said in a statement to The Hill.

Tucker cautioned that the former president may not see the political boost he thinks he will from rejoining X, noting that his comments are currently already available to his supporters and the media on Truth Social and that it may evoke “this feeling of trying to relive greatest hits from the past.”

While Trump has been seen by both Republicans and Democrats as a master-brander of sorts, nimbly using social media, the race against Harris is different this time, especially because of the condensed schedule. 

“We’ll see if it works the same way for him with less than 70 days to go,” Madden said.