Trump's own communications team doesn't know what Trump is going to tweet next


What President-elect Donald Trump tweets next isn't just a surprise to his followers; it's a surprise to everyone working for him, The Wall Street Journal reports. Incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday he does "not get a memo" about Trump's tweets and that he and others on the communication staff aren't consulted before Trump fires off.
"[It is an] exciting part of the job," Spicer told former Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod and former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs in a discussion at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.
But that doesn't mean the tweets are off-the-cuff, Spicer added. He said it was a "misconception … that [Trump] is just randomly tweeting … He is a very strategic thinker. He thinks about where things are going to end up."
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Lauded as a revolutionary tool during the election, Trump will continue to man his Twitter account while president. "The fact of the matter is that when he tweets he gets results," Spicer said last week. "So whether it's Twitter, holding a news conference, picking up the phone, having a meeting, he is going to make sure that he continues to fight for the American people every single day."
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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