According to Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), Donald Trump’s Twitter tirades are just his way of kicking back.
Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse the President-elect and the congressional liaison to his transition team, was asked on CNN’s “New Day” to explain the burst of tweets Trump sent out Wednesday morning.
“Do you think that this is a healthy way for him to govern going forward?” host Chris Cuomo asked of Trump’s tweets criticizing the “failing” New York Times for their reporting on troubles in his transition team.
I am not trying to get “top level security clearance” for my children. This was a typically false news story.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2016
The failing @nytimes story is so totally wrong on transition. It is going so smoothly. Also, I have spoken to many foreign leaders.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2016
“Well, I can tell you this, the pressure that has got to be on President-elect Trump is immense,” Collins replied. “The enormity of the job ahead of him, and so I would have to say if this is his way of relaxing, god bless him.”
“Relaxing?” Cuomo asked incredulously.
“Absolutely,” Collins said. “If this is what he has some fun with and he finds this relaxing, and his entertainment, let him go with it.”
Trump said last week that he would be “very restrained” with his social media accounts as president, though he said he would continue to use Twitter as a means of “fighting back” against coverage he deemed unfair.
Cuomo asked if Collins really thought it was a “good time” for the President-elect to further distance himself from the media and try to convince them that the Times’ reporting is “illegitimate.”
“I would not second-guess anything he’s doing that he would use to make himself—call it unwinding, relaxing, and I think that’s part of it,” he responded. “It’s Donald Trump being Donald Trump. You don’t want this stuff all bottled up. So frankly I don’t have a problem with this in the least.”
“I think America actually wants continue to see a real human being in the White House, and I put this in to the—you know, this is his way of unwinding, and taking some stress off,” he added. “So I think it’s a good thing.”
Trump’s aides reportedly confiscated his Twitter access in the final week of the campaign to prevent him from drawing any unwanted attention.
