Donald Trump isn’t exactly known for restraint regarding social media behavior. But his incoming chief of staff has reportedly sent a memo asking about his incoming appointees.
On Tuesday, the New York Post obtained a memo from Susie Wiles, named Trump’s White House Chief of Staff, ordering Trump nominees slated for jobs in the incoming administration to refrain from posting on social media before their confirmation hearings.
“While this instruction has been delivered previously, I am reiterating that no member of the incoming administration or Transition speaks for the United States or the President-elect himself,” Wiles wrote in the memo. “Accordingly, all intended nominees should refrain from any public social media posts without prior approval of the incoming White House counsel.”
Trump team orders ‘all intended nominees’ to stop posting on social media ahead of Senate confirmations https://t.co/RCuHedf7Ag pic.twitter.com/iNfC6AIISb
— New York Post (@nypost) December 30, 2024
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Needless to say, the edict does not apply to President-Elect Donald Trump himself, who has been as combative as ever on X and Truth Social in recent days. It also presumably does not apply to Elon Musk, the owner of X, whose Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may or may not make him an official administration member. The same goes for the other head of DOGE, Vivek Ramaswamy, who was roundly mocked for an X post last week that appeared to denigrate American culture.
The Post added that the memo was not issued in response to the recent controversy involving H-1B visas, with different corners of the MAGA coalition sparring for the last two weeks over whether visas should be granted to high-skilled workers from foreign countries; Silicon Valley tech types are on one side, while the nativists and racists are on the other. As of New Year’s Eve, Trump sycophant Laura Loomer was still railing against Musk on the skilled immigration front, although Loomer, needless to say, is not up for a job in the Trump Administration.
A memo from incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles asked nominees to get approval from Trump’s incoming White House counsel before posting online.https://t.co/eyPwCIoYwg
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) December 30, 2024
The Post noted that potentially controversial Trump nominees like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert Kennedy, Jr., have mostly been quiet on social media over the holidays, even though some have long-held reputations for aggressive social media behavior.
But Trump, of course, has kept right on ranting. On Monday, he took to X to demand that Democrats not do anything to block his nomination picks, declaring that “we just won a Historic Landslide and Mandate from the American People, but Senate Democrats are organizing to improperly stall and delay the confirmation process of many of our Great Nominees.”
Trump posted the same thing to Truth Social, where, as usual, he has posted more frequently, including multiple posts about his quixotic quest to reclaim the Panama Canal for the United States. Trump also posted this week about his plans to recapture Greenland and restore the “Mt. McKinley” name to Mt. Denali in Alaska.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
