Donald Trump’s eerie silence

| 2:45 pm EST November 30, 2019
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Donald Trump has a huge and potentially fateful week coming up for him. House impeachment hearings are about to go to the next level. House Democrats have cornered him by giving him the no-win choice of legitimizing the impeachment process by sending his own lawyers to participate, or refusing to send his lawyers and handing the Democrats a talking point about how he’s acting in bad faith. So what does Trump have to say for himself heading into this week?

Well, nothing. Donald Trump hasn’t tweeted anything at all since he posted a Thanksgiving message about 28 hours ago. In fact, aside from a few other retweets and generic holiday tweets, Trump hasn’t said anything on Twitter since Wednesday. Going back further, Trump hasn’t had an actual meltdown since Tuesday. When has this guy ever gone four days without a Twitter meltdown?

Yes, this is a holiday weekend, and everyone slows down a bit. Yes, Trump was traveling on at least one of those days. But the reality is that his Twitter account hasn’t been the same since he was mysteriously taken to the hospital two weeks ago, for reasons that were serious enough that he and his White House felt thy needed to cover it up with a series of absurd lies. Since his hospital run, it’s felt like Trump has been mailing it in on Twitter. And now that his handlers are presumably not around as much during the holidays, his Twitter account has gone nearly dormant – suggesting that they’ve been responsible for the few tweets that had been getting posted to his account lately.

Maybe this is all nothing. But since Donald Trump’s mysterious hospital visit, he’s been seen keeping his left arm largely in check during the dog photo op, he’s had isolated instances of struggling to speak (“sock rocket”), he seemed to be slightly favoring one leg when he was in Afghanistan, and he’s become less active on Twitter than at any point in his presidency. If this is all a coincidence, it’s a fascinating one.