Will this be a Twitter presidency or a TV presidency?

• Donald Trump loved Twitter during his first term. Now he is working with Twitter owner Elon Musk.

• Does this mean Twitter will be important in a second Trump administration?

• Probably! But remember, Trump used Twitter as an output device, not an input device. That could limit its influence on him.

Donald Trump becomes president again. Elon Musk, one of his biggest backers, owns Twitter.

Does this mean that Twitter will become more important in the Trump 2.0 era?

Probably?

But we won’t know How Twitter, which Musk has renamed X, will be around for a while.

For example, it was interesting to see the campaign for the next Senate majority leader taking place on Twitter this weekend, with conservative leaders including Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk having their input on the platform, as well as Musk and Trump.

That battle is still going on, by the way. Here was Kirk on Monday morning, trying to rally the troops in favor of U.S. Senator Rick Scott:

And at the very least, it seems obvious to conclude that as long as Musk is aligned with Trump, Twitter users will see a lot of content on Twitter that supports Trump. As both The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have reported — and many people can see for themselves — Twitter has already taken a rightward turn under Musk’s ownership. And of course, many people close to Trump are also avid Twitter users, starting with Musk himself.

But the big unknown that’s on my mind right now is pretty simple: Does Donald Trump know what’s going on on Twitter, or does he care?

Trump loved Twitter during his first term. But he wasn’t as addicted to it as many of us: He was constantly scrolling for things that enraged, delighted, or distracted him. Instead, he used it as a remote control – to program media coverage and reality itself.

Here’s Trump in 2019, talking to Fox News about the way he used Twitter:

But look who Trump spoke to in that interview: Fox News.

Trump 1.0 was a president who understood that digital media was important. But he was first and foremost a president who came of age in the 1970s and 1980s, and his media diet reflected that: print newspapers and magazines, which he took notes on with a Sharpie. And above all: television.

Trump was the TV president

Trump was fascinated by TV, and that meant TV was the main medium during his first presidency. If you wanted to communicate with the president, the conventional wisdom became, you did it by going on TV, because you knew he would see it there. Especially Fox News.

That was four years ago, and the TV landscape has continued to drain money and audiences ever since. Election night television ratings were down 25% last week compared to 2020. New media and platforms such as podcasts, YouTube and TikTok are on the rise, and Trump and his campaign have invested a lot of time and effort there.

So is it possible that Trump, who is approaching 80 and played songs from 1978 at his rallies, has also changed his media diet?

I mean, right? I think it’s conceivable that he went on Theo Von’s podcast/YouTube show because he’s a big fan of Theo Von.

My suspicion, however, is that he gets his information the way he always has: by watching and reading old media. And, as The New York Times reports, by asking who is currently in his orbit:

“Mr. Trump, who is a mix of competing impulses, is also doing what he always does: calling up friends and acquaintances and asking them who they think he should choose.”

And to be clear, what happens on Twitter – or anywhere else online – can have a major impact on the way the people who influence Trump think. But even she pay attention to TV – or at least TV clips on the Internet.

For example, Musk spent part of his Sunday using Twitter to criticize “Saturday Night Live” – just like Trump used to do. “They are so angry that @realDonaldTrump won,” he wrote, adding:

I’m very wary looking at Trump 2016-2020 and confidently projecting that the next four years will be the same. But I’ll be surprised if Donald Trump, TV guy, becomes Donald Trump, Twitter guy.

Read the original article on Business Insider