MAKING A MONSTER

Guy Who Taught Donald Trump Twitter Panicked When Future President Tweeted on His Own

It “was comparable to the moment in ‘Jurassic Park’ when Dr. Grant realized that velociraptors could open doors.”

President Trump wasn’t born a rabid tweeter—someone made him that way. And that would be his former social-media manager Justin McConney. According to a Politico interview published Thursday, McConney said the future commander in chief got hooked on social media after a pizza lunch with Sarah Palin in 2011. McConney explained that after Trump was mocked for eating pizza with a knife and fork, and delivered a video rebuttal explaining his decision that got press coverage, “he was sold on the concept of social media.” Over the next few years, McConney added, he worked with the president almost daily to refine his online presence, often transcribing tweets that Trump wrote or dictated—until the fateful day in 2013 that Trump tweeted independently for the first time. “The moment I found out Trump could tweet himself was comparable to the moment in Jurassic Park when Dr. Grant realized that velociraptors could open doors,” McConney said. “I was like, ‘Oh no.’”

Sarah Palin and Donald Trump's Pizza Summit

Shushannah Walshe