Trump's press team no longer lets him control his own Twitter account, according to campaign insiders who spoke to the New York Times; now he must dictate proposed tweets to grownups who decide whether to publish them.
It's part of an overall implosion of the campaign, which is operating in a data-vacuum since it refused to pay its pollsters, and which is hobbled by Trump's insistence that online ads are a waste of money. He gets contradictory advice from his fired ex-advisors and makes the current team respond to it. He is contemplating funding a "revenge" Super PAC to punish Republican candidates who did not support him.
Trump is reportedly confident that he will win tomorrow's election.
Taking away Twitter turned out to be an essential move by his press team, which deprived him of a previously unfiltered channel for his aggressions.
On Thursday, as his plane idled on the tarmac in Miami, Mr. Trump spotted Air Force One outside his window. As he glowered at the larger plane, he told Ms. Hicks, his spokeswoman, to jot down a proposed tweet about President Obama, who was campaigning nearby for Mrs. Clinton.
"Why is he campaigning instead of creating jobs and fixing Obamacare?" Mr. Trump said. "Get back to work." After some light editing — Ms. Hicks added "for the American people" at the end — she published it.
Mr. Bannon, his rumpled campaign chief and a calming presence to the candidate, tried a different approach: appealing to Mr. Trump's ego and competitive side by suggesting that the Clintons were looking to rattle him.
Inside Donald Trump's Last Stand: An Anxious Nominee Seeks Assurance
[Maggie Haberman, Ashley Parker, Jeremy W. Peters and Michael Barbaro/New York Times]
They Finally Took Away Donald Trump's Twitter Account
[Ashley Feinberg/The Concourse]
(Image: Donald Trump 2013 cropped more, Gage Skidmore, CC-BY-SA)
