Did Trump’s staff really take away his Twitter privileges? Here’s one clue

Over the weekend, the New York Times broke some news about Donald Trump’s tweets.

“Aides to Mr. Trump have finally wrested away the Twitter account that he used to colorfully — and often counterproductively — savage his rivals,” the newspaper reported in its story about the final days of the Republican candidate’s campaign for president.

The paper also described Trump dictating a tweet to his spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, who then did light editing on his remarks, and noted that Trump “seemed struck by an unfamiliar trend: News stories emphasized the intended message of his campaign rallies, not his improvised rants or stray tweets.”

OK. Except then Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, totally denied it.

“No, it’s not true,” Conway said Monday on NBC’s “Today” show when grilled about the Times’ report.

Whom to believe? Let’s review the evidence.

In August, we reported on a theory that Trump’s account had multiple authors. The theory goes that tweets sent from an iPhone, which tend to be more measured and feature pictures of crowds, come from Trump’s staff. Tweets sent from an Android device, which tend to be more confrontational, are thought to come from Trump.

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So where have Trump’s tweets been coming from lately? An iPhone. (You can look here for yourself: Trump’s Android tweets versus iPhone tweets.)

Since Thursday, @realDonaldTrump has sent only one tweet from an Android account, on Saturday morning:

Over the same time period, @realDonaldTrump has sent about three dozen tweets from an iPhone, often with photos of his rallies.

Obviously, this is not definitive evidence that Trump’s staff has stripped away his Twitter access. But it’s safe to say that his account has been much less newsworthy lately.

Email: matt.pearce@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter: @mattdpearce

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