Due to recent whistleblowers, President Donald Trump is under investigation due to alleged abuse of his executive powers, which has opened up an impeachment inquiry. According to BBC News, the allegations that Trump used his presidential position to pressure Ukraine to “dig up dirt” on political rival Democrat Joe Biden allegations seem like an unethical and suspicious action. However, asking Ukraine to meddle with next years’ election candidates is definitely illegal. These claims paved the way for an impeachment inquiry, which is now pending and in the process, with Trump denying any incriminating offense.
Trump’s handling of the situation proves more immature and unstable day by day. One of his active, live outlets to the media is his Twitter account. While written by the president and the White House social media director, many of the tweets seem impulsive, defensive and oftentimes, attacking. Of his many twitter victims, this impeachment process prompted Trump to target the media and Hunter Biden.
This impeachment inquiry is tense, and vocabulary like this hints that the president doesn’t care enough to take it seriously. It only seems logical to deal with legal matters professionally, not as a name-calling game as the president displays on Twitter. His Twitter account is quick to make accusations and place blame on a slew of names rather than himself. This impulsive nature isn’t very presidential, which has led to the deletion of many tweets in the past.
Even in the case of his impeachment inquiry, Trump makes many remarks that refute past ones, which is why Twitter is not the correct outlet for situations like these. For example, according to Roll Call, “‘The whistleblower gave a false account,’ Trump told reporters during another wild Cabinet meeting-turned-press conference on Monday. On this, Trump has repeatedly — almost daily — contradicted himself. That’s because he also said a White House-prepared summary of the call accurately reflects what he said to and requested of Zelenskiy. In short, one cannot be ‘false’ and the other true.” Trump’s twitter mimics this indecisiveness, which is even worse on social media records.
Such a reactive site could jeopardize the very sensitive topics Trump addresses. Extending to such an expansive audience, social media “rants” are highly impressionable, and not fitting for the president’s dynamic/impulsive ideas. If one were to argue that the tweets are simply freedom of speech, that right is revoked when abused or if it comes across as slander. Especially for the general public and even students here at Heritage, getting biased or perhaps wrong information from such a high power can contradict news sites, making it hard to distinguish fact from fiction.
In regards to the tweet above, FNC political analyst Juan Williams weighed in with his disapproval on the tweet as well. In an interview with Fox News, he said, “The man holding the most powerful office in the land (who is) engaged in a judicial process; impeachment… and now he reaches across and says somehow that he is the victim of a lynching… for him to touch such a painful and highly resonant cord in American history just to get us to change the subject, to stop talking about his wrongdoing and the impeachment; it’s just blasphemy.” To say the least, the words of the president prove insensitive and plain irresponsible in such a delicate matter.
As this impeachment case progresses, it’s important to draw certain lines. Donald Trump’s Twitter account should not serve as an informal manner of accusations, specifically not during cases like these where biased opinions tend to overlap the facts. If it were a personal account, so be it; but this is an account used for presidential stance and updates, which American citizens have the right to know about. With such a large following, it should be monitored more closely and responsibly to avoid future offensive tweets.
