Trump Makes Tentative Return From Nearly 40-Hour Twitter Silence

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump broke a Twitter silence of almost 40 hours following the delivery of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, calling on followers Sunday to “Have a Great Day!” before testing the waters with an all-caps “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

The pair of tweets, resuming at 8:01 a.m. EDT as the first of the regular Sunday television news shows began, punctuated an unusual silence on the social media platform, where Trump is followed by 59 million people.

Trump’s previous tweet had come at 4:15 p.m. Friday, when he posted a video of his meeting that day with Caribbean leaders at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

That post came less than a hour before Mueller’s team delivered its long awaited report on an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible connections to Trump associates.

Trump’s absence from Twitter in the interim, even after golfing Saturday with his friend and musician Kid Rock, was one of his longest-ever absences from Twitter, though not the longest.

In June 2017, the president went dark for nearly 46 hours around the Senate testimony by former FBI director James Comey, whose firing by Trump triggered the hiring of Mueller all those months ago. When Trump returned to Twitter back then, early on the morning of June 9, he lashed out at Comey and claimed “total and complete vindication.” This time around, the president has been more restrained.

White House aides and Trump’s inner circle appeared relieved over the weekend to learn that Mueller will not file more indictments in connection with his probe. But the president and his team hadn’t been briefed on the report’s findings as of Sunday morning, aides said.

And it may take some time for those inside the government and Congress who have access to Mueller’s findings to understand what the implications are for Trump, his family and associates.

Trump was again at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on Sunday and is expected to return to Washington this evening.

Some of Trump’s surrogates, including his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, started to come out of the woodwork on social media on Sunday. Giuliani challenged Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, on the question of whether the lack of further indictments is a “vindication” for Trump.

To contact the reporter on this story: Margaret Talev in Washington at mtalev@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Elizabeth Wasserman

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