Thread by @MattGertz

President Trump has sent 1,375 tweets in response to things he saw on his television since September 1, 2018.

Of those, 1,289 came in response to Fox News or Fox Business.

This was the last one, which set his banning in motion.

https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/1347556359433314308

While Trump had recently started tweeting competitors like Newsmax and OAN more frequently, his last seven live-tweets all came in response to Fox News segments.

I started studying this Fox-Trump feedback loop in October 2017, and explained his live-tweeting phenomenon In January 2018. At the time, it was almost a frivolity -- an explanation for the president's bizarre and hyperaggressive online behavior. politico.com/magazine/story…

It was strange and shocking, I wrote, that "a man with unparalleled access to the world’s most powerful information-gathering machine, with an intelligence budget estimated at $73 billion last year, prefers to rely on conservative cable news hosts to understand current events."

But as time passed, that feedback loop started powering federal policy. By 2019, its impact on every aspect of the U.S. political system had become inescapable. Government shutdown, pardons, contracts, and more came in response to his TV. mediamatters.org/fox-news/presi…

Last year, the Fox-Trump feedback loop took a deadly turn. It fueled his disastrous handling of the pandemic, shaped his response to the protests, and powered his attempt to overthrow results of the election that he lost. mediamatters.org/fox-news/misin…

We've never seen anything like it before, and will never see anything like it again. National policy shaped by the president's relationship with a cable news network, expressed in real time through his tweets.

Anyway, thanks to all of you for encouraging me and sticking with me as I tried to explain what Trump was doing. We'll see if I need to figure out how to say that the president is sending live Parlers or whatever.