Ann Coulter and Michael Cohen were canned while Corey Lewandowski and Reince Priebus survive against an unchanging backdrop of golf courses, hotels, and family members.
Although President Trump is followed by almost 60 million people on Twitter, the 45th president of the U.S. follows only 45 accounts with an apparent one-in, one-out policy that serves as a barometer of favor.
Among the TV personalities he follows are Piers Morgan, Tucker Carlson, Jesse Watters, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Greta Van Susteren. He follows his favorite TV show, “Fox & Friends.” The only news site he follows is the Drudge Report, founded in 1995 by Matt Drudge.
The secret to survival on one of the most influential Twitter accounts in the world is to mind your manners even when delivering criticism of Trump and his administration, according to Morgan, the British journalist and former CNN anchor who was one of the first accounts followed by the future president.
“If you call him a moron, he’s not going to follow you on Twitter,” Morgan told the Washington Examiner. “He’s going to call you a moron back, probably with bells on.”
Morgan, 54, has not been afraid to criticize Trump’s leadership in newspaper columns but said he always tries to be respectful of the office and the man.
Unlike Coulter, he added. The conservative firebrand abruptly disappeared from the list amid a public war of words with the president over his failure to find billions of dollars to fund his border wall.
She was unfollowed soon after claiming the Trump presidency would be a “joke” if he failed to build the border wall with Mexico.
Cohen, the president’s former fixer, was also jettisoned in October amid reports that the man who once said he would take a bullet for Trump was cooperating with prosecutors in New York.
In have come key figures in the 2020 reelection effort such as Brad Parscale, campaign manager, and Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee.
But through it all remain the family members, Fox News hosts, Trump Organization golf courses, and hotels that make up the bulk of Trump’s immediate world.
Morgan, whose entree to Trumpworld was winning the first season of “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2008, said he was followed by Trump around 2011, putting him in the extraordinary position of being able to bypass gatekeepers and aides to feed ideas and headlines directly to the person who would become the most powerful man on the planet.
Anyone who knew how the real estate mogul navigated the New York business world, he added, understood the best way to get along with him in the virtual world.
“He’s quite an easy guy to get on with,” he said. “But if you want to abuse him and punch him in the face metaphorically, he’ll do exactly the same back to you.”
World leaders who understand that, such as Emmanuel Macron of France, can get the best results.
“When he criticizes him, he does it in a forthright way, but he’s respectful,” Morgan said. “He gets more respect out of Macron and Putin, to a degree, than he does from vast swaths of his own people.”
On Tuesday, Trump’s Twitter feed combined updates on the border crisis, positive stories about the administration, and a smattering of boasts from Morgan about the size of his TV audience.
It also offered hints about which former staffers might remain in the president’s good graces.
So although Lewandowski left the 2016 campaign after clashing with other figures, and although Priebus was White House chief of staff for only six months during a tenure characterized by leaks and infighting, both are still followed by the tweeter in chief.
Conventional Trumpworld is heavily represented on the list. Eight Trump hotels and golf courses make the cut, along with assorted family members — including his wife Melania and children Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and Tiffany.
And the list reflects Trump’s well-known love of Fox News. Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and the veteran commentator Geraldo Rivera are on the list along with Bill O’Reilly, whose departure from the network amid sex harassment allegations has not affected his place.
“The Apprentice,” the TV show that propelled Trump to global fame, is also represented. Trump follows Mark Burnett, the British TV producer credited with inventing the show, along with his wife, the actress Roma Downey, whose Christian messages provide some spiritual relief amid the gloom, and Katrina Campins, who appeared in its first season.
[Also read: Dan Rather: Trump wielding the ‘most powerful platform for propaganda’]
