President Donald Trump has frequently used Twitter to lash out against the opposition, so an angry tweet from him isn’t exactly a surprise. But on Monday, in a sudden break from convention, the official White House Twitter account went after Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, two politicians who have publicly opposed the Trump administration, and used a pair of tweets to attack and misrepresent their positions on immigration.
Both Warren and Harris have spoken out against Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy at the border, and they tweeted in support of the national “Families Belong Together” rally this weekend.
On Monday, @WhiteHouse directed a message at Warren first. “@SenWarren, why are you supporting criminals moving weapons, drugs, and victims across our nation’s borders? You must not know what ICE really does. Here is a link to help you out,” the tweet read, included a link to a release on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement website. An hour later, another tweet was published, this time for Harris. “.@SenKamalaHarris, why are you supporting the animals of MS-13? You must not know what ICE really does,” the White House said.
The White House’s official Twitter account has more than 17.3 million followers and functions as part of the federal government, which makes partisan tweets that single out particular senators a major deviation from past practices. An anonymous source with familiarity of the White House’s social media policies told CNN Politics that no more than five people have access to the account and said the team had gone “to great lengths” to keep it from being political. It’s unclear, as the New York Times points out, whether the messages actually violate any ethics, but some Democrats have suggested that the tweets could breach the Hatch Act, which prevents federal resources being used for political activity.
Harris shot back at the White House with a tweet that explained she has never supported MS-13 and wrote, “As a career prosecutor, I actually went after gangs and transnational criminal organizations. That’s being a leader on public safety. What is not, is ripping babies from their mothers.” Her communications director, Lily Adams, also tweeted, “The White House is using government taxpayer resources to target a senator with complete and utter falsehoods.”
Meanwhile, Trump has continued a feud with Congresswoman Maxine Waters on his own Twitter account. After Waters gave a speech telling members of the public to confront Trump administration officials, Trump called the politician “an extraordinarily low IQ person” and told her to ” be careful what you wish for,” which many people interpreted as a threat. On Tuesday morning, he directed another message at her: “Crazy Maxine Waters, said by some to be one of the most corrupt people in politics, is rapidly becoming, together with Nancy Pelosi, the FACE of the Democrat Party. Her ranting and raving, even referring to herself as a wounded animal, will make people flee the Democrats!”
It’s worth noting that in June of 2017, then-White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that the president’s tweets should be regarded as official statements. “The President is the President of the United States, so they’re considered official statements by the President of the United States,” Spicer explained.
Tweets from both Trump and the White House are arriving at a time when conversations have unspooled about the nature of civility in a polarized political era. It’s impossible to reconcile the administration’s calls for civility when public resources are being weaponized to falsely discredit individual politicians. The White House Twitter account represents another radical shift in the Trump administration that changes the course of conduct in the national dialogue.
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