Funnyman Stephen Colbert quipped last night that Trump needs a Twitter intervention, pleading with the president “to accept help — or at the very least autocorrect.” And normally that’d be a good bit, except Trump stepped on the joke this week.
The president has gotten out of his own way by staying off of Twitter over the past few days. As a result, there have been no flare-ups, no needless controversies, no breathless hot takes, and no presidential gut reactions being shared about what’s on the cable news. It’s hands-down the most significant unintended benefit of the president’s international trip.
What’s good for the republic is bad for comics, though. Normally, Trump’s Twitter feed is full of material thanks to the president’s tendency to tweet from the hip. His tweets have not only launched dozens of prime-time jokes, but in some cases (as with his threat to produce “tapes” of his conversations with former FBI Director James Comey) they have also sparked damaging stories in the New York Times and Washington Post.
But suddenly Trump has gone silent. White House staff staged something of an intervention, like the one that Colbert mocked. “In that meeting,” the Journal reports, “aides warned Mr. Trump that certain kinds of comments made on Twitter would ‘paint him into a corner.'”
That digital leave of absence lends itself to presidential credibility. Rather than swinging back at criticism and out of control, Trump has stayed on message. He’s not handing out punchlines to comedians and pundits anymore. Instead his online presence has highlighted his diplomacy in the Middle East and his leadership in the aftermath of the Manchester terror attack.
This new approach shouldn’t end when Air Force One touches down in America and his international trip comes to a close. That’d be a loss for Colbert and company but a win for the country.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
