Presidents these days and their darn phones.

While preparing to return to the White House in January, President-elect Donald Trump, 78, is as active as ever on social media. On Thursday night, he used his @realdonaldtrump handle on Truth Social to break the news that Pam Bondi was his new pick to be attorney general after Matt Gaetz dropped out hours earlier amid sexual misconduct allegations. That follows his recent posts calling for an end to Democratic judge confirmations before his inauguration, documenting his attendance at a UFC fight and confirming that he plans to use the U.S. military to deport undocumented migrants.

Though Trump has largely avoided talking to traditional media about his transition, his social media offers an up-front look at the design of his upcoming administration. It’s a notable contrast from his first White House transition in late 2016 and early 2017, when Trump summoned potential hires to his properties in New York and New Jersey and enjoyed parading them in front of his dues-paying guests and reporters. In the past three weeks since winning his second term in 2024, the former and future president is largely making news via social media posts announcing his picks for Cabinet positions even before releasing official notices.

Trump uses both his own social media platform Truth Social and X, formerly Twitter, to communicate directly to the public. His posts garner massive attention from his millions of followers, curb political norms and shape his unorthodox character as a celebrity and a politician.

“No one has used social media like this before as a president,” said Brendan Brown, a San Diego-based engineer who launched the Trump Twitter Archive in 2016. His site compiles more than 80,000 of Trump’s previous posts from both X and Truth Social.

Trump launched Truth Social one year after being kicked off Twitter in January 2021 for “incitement of violence” after the attacks on the Capitol and has since become his primary social media account. There, he also called for the “termination” of parts of the United States Constitution, publicized that he’d go after those who prosecute him and announced his third bid for the White House.

On both Truth Social and X, Trump posts, likes, and reposts mocking memes of his political opponents, debunked claims of election fraud and AI-generated or edited photos of himself appearing as everything from a Pittsburgh Steelers football player to a cape-wearing Super Man.

Using social media in Trump’s presidential capacity is nothing new. But when he returns to the White House in less than two months, he will have tech billionaire and X owner Elon Musk by his side. Musk, who is extremely active online and been outspoken about free speech, is tasked with slashing government funding in the new administration.

‘That’s Trump’s way’

Trump marked his first term in the White House with a stream of erratic and unvetted tweets, often posting early in the morning or late at night.They covered everything from attacking “fake news” outlets and inventing entire phenomenons like “covfefe” to announcements about his official duties, like picking Supreme Court nominees. Some were even directed at foreign leaders, including warning former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to not threaten the United States, claiming Mexico would pay for a border wall and taunting North Korea, saying his nuclear button is “much bigger and more powerful one than (Kim Jong Un’s), and my Button works!”

“You can have the best laid out plan, but if he decided at 7 a.m. he was going to tweet,” Sean Spicer, former Trump White House Press Secretary told YSL News. “Then that was it, and then you just fell in line.”

Spicer recalled the former president joking before his first administration that he was going to be the “most traditional” president there ever was. But Spicer said working with Trump’s communication style came with a learning curve, and one he didn’t have much time to adapt to.

“You have to learn that’s the Trump way,” Spicer said.

Beyond their odd-hour timing, Trump’s social media posts have caused concern before. According to 2017 reporting from the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s lawyers attempted to vet his tweets during his first term in the wake of the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and alleged collaboration of his campaign.

A YSL News review of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report into Russian interference found Trump’s Twitter account activities appeared at least 99 times.

Federal investigators also found Trump’s posts useful after he left office, including special counsel Jack Smith’s federal 2020 election subversion probe and the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol attack where “@realDonaldTrump,” his handle, was mentioned 149 times according to a YSL News review of the final report.

At first, GOP lawmakers weren’t a fan of answering for Trump’s unpredictable posts, often pleading ignorance and refusing to give their own snap reactions. But today, some find his internet activity endearing.

Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., told YSL News Trump’s social media use is “one of (his) greatest weapons” and offers a transparent look into a president’s character and thinking.

“It’s a welcome change,” he said. “It’s great having a president who is so well-versed when it comes to utilizing social media.”

In the wake of the firehose of Truth Social and X posts announcing his Cabinet picks, Democrats aren’t excited about the anticipated abrupt announcements.

“It’s chaotic, it makes it hard to govern and to lead a country,” Rep. Jason Crowd, D-Colo., told YSL News.

Trump admin 2.0

Eight years ago during Trump’s first transition, the president-elect brought prospective Cabinet picks and other hires to Trump Tower in New York and to his private golf club in New Jersey. At both locations, Trump went out of his way to ensure he and his guests passed in front of television cameras and spoke with reporters.

Just two months before his return to the White House in 2024, Trump’s transition is playing out on social media for the world to see. His posts include screenshotted images of statements selecting his Cabinet picks like former GOP presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to head the Health and Human Services Department and Tom Homan as border czar.

It’s also how he’s reacting to major events. After a hectic week of sexual misconduct allegations resurfacing against Matt Gaetz, Trump on Thursday used Truth Social to respond to his pick to be the next attorney general withdrawing, which the former Florida GOP congressman also announced on X. The Trump transition’s formal statement about Gaetz that got blasted out to reporters was simply a screenshot of the president-elect’s Truth Social post.

Hours later, Trump again turned to Truth Social as the forum for breaking the news that he planned to nominate Bondi to lead the Justice Department. The former attorney general in Florida served as one of Trump’s White House defense lawyers in 2019 during his first Senate impeachment trial.

The president-elect is also talking about how to implement his campaign promises over the next four years on his social media accounts. Trump confirmed Tuesday he plans to carry out mass deportations of undocumented migrants via the military by reposting a conservative commentator’s post on Truth Social about “a mass deportation program” with one word: “TRUE!!!”

In 2022, new X owner Musk reinstated Trump’s account, but Trump didn’t post again until August 2023, and he didn’t start posting regularly until a year later heading into the home stretch of the 2024 campaign.

Regardless of the platform, Trump’s use of social media to develop his public persona has helped gain him more attention than traditional media ever would have paid him on their own, former veteran journalist and deputy director of New York University’s Center for Business and Human Rights Paul Barrett told YSL News.

“Trump had an instinct honed over decades of experience with the media that these new forms of communication would be valuable to him,” he said.

Beyond Trump’s own posts, photos and video of the behind-the-scenes moments leading up to 2025 have continued to echo his reelection bid’s rhetoric and viral moments.

Trump and his circle’s social media activity in recent weeks has repeated the rhetoric he laid out on the campaign trail, ranging from attacking the media to joking about his signature dance moves.

Party attendees at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club posted a video last week of Argentinian President Javier Milei dancing like Trump to “Y-M-C-A” on X. A few days before, a video of Trump and Musk was posted to X of the pair singing “God Bless America.”

Last week, an attendee posted a video on X of Vice President-elect JD Vance’s remarks at an otherwise private event for the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank founded by Trump aides in 2021, where he joked about the “fake news media” deeming him a domestic terrorist.

Early Sunday morning, Trump’s deputy director of communications Margo Martin shared a photo of Trump and his inner circle — Musk, son Donald Trump, Jr., Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Kennedy — on his private plane eating McDonald’s. They were traveling back to Florida after attending the UFC championship match up of long-time Trump supporter Jake Paul and boxing legend Mike Tyson – an event chronicled on social media by the president-elect’s team and thousands of fans in attendance at the Madison Square Garden event in New York.

Vance has also been using social media to share information directly to the public, saying on X in a since-deleted post on Tuesday that he and Trump were interviewing candidates for FBI director. The message signaled Trump’s long-stated plans once his presidency begins in less than 60 days to make a potentially politically explosive move: firing current director Christopher Wray.