After more than a year and a half in office, you might have guessed Donald Trump would have figured out this whole “president” thing. But you’d be wrong.
As BuzzFeed showed in a new report Thursday night, Trump is often inept at achieving the most basic functions of his office, taking to Twitter when he should be going through official channels. And many in the government, BuzzFeed reports, have taken to just ignoring Trump’s tweets, even when they appear to be orders or directives.
One recent example of this phenomenon is Trump’s announcement that he was withdrawing the United States from the joint communique agreed to by the leaders at the G7 summit. He had initially signed on to the communique but later tweeted that he was pulling out because Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was mean to him.
“Since Trump’s tweet, however, there has been no formal or official follow-up by the US on the president’s demand, the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said,” BuzzFeed reported.
“The White House and State Dept. are actively ignoring the tweets of the president,” a source reportedly told the outlet. “It’s like there’s a reality TV president, in his own bubble, thinking he controls stuff. It’s like The Truman Show.”
Because of that, it seems the Trump’s initial agreement to the communique stands, regardless of his tweet. A similar situation played out at first when Trump announced on Twitter that he was banning all transgender people from serving in the military, which came as a major shock to military leadership.
Eventually, the White House followed the tweet with an official memorandum, but the action has been blocked in court. The judge indicated that the government hadn’t provided any indication that the “ongoing service of transgender people would have any negative effective on the military at all.”
And just this week, Trump tweeted at Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he should end the Mueller probe. Sessions is apparently ignoring that directive, as well.