‘Be Weak & Die!’ Seeking Clues Behind Trump’s Weekend Twitter Barrage
As is often the case, there was a correlation between what appeared on Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed and the programming on Fox News. The weekend tour into conspiracy theories kicked off on Friday, when Mr. Trump elevated a nascent movement that calls itself “Jexodus,” the brainchild of a conservative Jewish activist that describes itself as a group of “proud Jewish millennials tired of living in bondage to leftist politics.”
“The ‘Jexodus’ movement encourages Jewish people to leave the Democrat Party,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, although there is no evidence to suggest that Jewish voters have been deserting the party. But Mr. Trump appeared to be reacting to an appearance on “Fox & Friends” by the group’s spokeswoman, Elizabeth Pipko, a former model and Trump 2016 campaign staff member.
Brian Ott, who studies the effects of rhetoric at Texas Tech University and is the author of a book studying Mr. Trump’s tweets, said the president appeared to have become less concerned with the consequences of his messaging.
“Not only is it already getting worse,” Dr. Ott said, “I don’t think we’ve even seen the tip of the iceberg yet. As these investigations begin to close in on him, really his only play is to stoke vitriol and violence.”
Tweeting has also become a normal part of how the president circumvents the news media and his own advisers to communicate to the public what is on his mind. But the weekend whirlwind was so unusual that it created its own mini news cycle, with targets using their own platforms to respond and aides fielding questions from reporters about the president’s mental state.
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, defended him on Monday morning after her husband, George Conway, spent the weekend raising concerns about “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” and said on Twitter that Mr. Trump’s “condition is getting worse.”
“No, I don’t share those concerns,” Ms. Conway told reporters outside the White House.
Meghan McCain, a host of “The View” and the daughter of Mr. McCain, said the attacks — which included a presidential retweet of a woman who claimed that “Millions of Americans truly LOVE President Trump, not McCain” — only made her feel bad for Mr. Trump’s family.
“I can’t imagine having a father that does this on the weekends,” Ms. McCain said.