America to Trump: Stop Tweeting; President-Elect Heads to Military Town, as Does Actual President

■ Hello, Fayetteville: President-elect Donald J. Trump will be in North Carolina, on the outskirts of Fort Bragg, for the second leg of his “thank-you tour.”

■ But before he boards Trump Force One, the president-elect will meet with Rex W. Tillerson, the president and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, to discuss the still-unfilled post of secretary of state.

■ Other visitors to Trump Tower scheduled for Tuesday include Gov. Terry E. Branstad of Iowa; Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington; and Laura Ingraham, the conservative talk radio host whose name has been floated as a communications director or press secretary in Mr. Trump’s White House.

America to Trump: Get off Twitter!

True, polls these days are a bit discredited, what with the election results and everything, but consider this: 56 percent of Americans think Mr. Trump uses Twitter too much. A strong plurality, 49 percent, said the president-elect’s use of Twitter is a bad thing.

The Morning Consult poll, of course, showed the usual partisan divide. Only 37 percent of Trump voters said the president-elect was going a little heavy on the tweets, while 79 percent of Hillary Clinton voters thought so.

Then again, there were considerably more voters for Mrs. Clinton than Mr. Trump.

Regardless, he tweeted anyway:

Only one commander in chief at a time, maybe.

Mr. Trump’s thank-you tour will make its second stop on Tuesday in Fayetteville, N.C., home of Fort Bragg and the Special Operations Command. Coincidentally or not, President Obama will be at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., home of Central Command.

Certainly, Mr. Trump has many people to thank in North Carolina, where most polls showed him behind Mrs. Clinton, but the tally that mattered, on Election Day, gave him a comfortable 3.6-percentage-point win.

Photo

President-elect Donald J. Trump arrived in Cincinnati for a “thank-you” rally on Thursday. He will hold a second in Fayetteville, N.C., on Tuesday. CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times

Still, the split-screen view of a president talking to veterans at one military base and a president-elect rallying a military-rich crowd near another is a striking departure from past practices.

The president-elect is obviously a creature of habit, not one to venture into parts unknown for culinary adventures — no Anthony Bourdain is he.

On Monday night, he decamped from Trump Tower with his wife, Melania, and grown children Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric, as well as Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, for a meal at … the “21” Club. Yes, the same restaurant he ditched the news media to go to just after his election. Only this time, the press pool was along for the ride, if not the meal; reporters waited in a bus parked outside while the president-elect and his family spent more than two hours dining.

Christopher Suprun, a Republican elector from Texas, announced in The New York Times on Monday that he would not cast his vote for Mr. Trump when the Electoral College convenes — and a group of academics and lawyers are trying to coax more “faithless” electors to follow suit.

As Mr. Suprun explained it:

The United States was set up as a republic. Alexander Hamilton provided a blueprint for states’ votes. Federalist 68 argued that an Electoral College should determine if candidates are qualified, not engaged in demagogy, and independent from foreign influence. Mr. Trump shows us again and again that he does not meet these standards. Given his own public statements, it isn’t clear how the Electoral College can ignore these issues, and so it should reject him.

To give encouragement, and legal support, the Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig and the law firm Durie Tangri have teamed up to start what they are calling the Electors Trust, offering free counsel to other electors pondering Mr. Suprun’s route.

Of course, there are 2,645,046 other reasons electors might decide to bolt from the president-elect. That is Mrs. Clinton’s popular vote lead after a new round of tabulations in upstate New York.

To protect a president-elect, spend money.

Word is that Ivanka Trump and Mr. Kushner are hunting for a home in Washington, but Melania Trump and 10-year-old Barron will be staying in Manhattan for the time being.

All those Trumps in New York are starting to cost the city — and by extension, the federal taxpayer — a pretty penny.

Be the first to comment on "America to Trump: Stop Tweeting; President-Elect Heads to Military Town, as Does Actual President"

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*


Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.