Meet the man who tweets for Trump
IT IS 2.46am on US election night. The video shows Donald Trump hovering behind a curtain, waiting to take the stage and celebrate his most unlikely of presidential victories with supporters.
All his most prominent allies are there – sons Donald Jr and Eric, wife Melania and campaign chiefs Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon. So too is the man shooting the backstage footage, unseen by the camera but among the few dozen present for this moment of history: Dan Scavino.
In Britain, as in much of America, few people have heard of Mr Scavino. But his work is known most of the world over. As White House social media director, he is one of the few people with access to the president’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts – and is thus rumoured to be the man behind Mr Trump’s tweets. The White House pushes back on suggestions Mr Trump does not write all his own tweets, but figures in the inner circle have suggested otherwise to The Daily Telegraph.
“There are a lot of folks who say he’s the actual guy who does a lot of the tweets and pushing of the button,” said one Trump administration source. Mr Scavino, who is in his early 40s, is credited with many of the likes and retweets from Mr Trump’s Twitter account, @realdonaldtrump which has 51million followers
One occasion on October 4 made headlines. Mr Scavino, who himself has 478,000 followers on Twitter, posted: “NBC news is #Fakenews and more dishonest than even CNN. They are a disgrace to good reporting. No wonder their news ratings are way down!” Moments later, Mr Trump tweeted the exact same message. Mr Scavino’s original tweet was rapidly deleted, but not before it was picked up by the US media.
Fellow Trump camp figures describe Mr Scavino as a “brash”, goofy man who hangs around meetings to “take pictures” and connect the president to his voters rather than give strategic guidance. “It seems like he kind of has carte blanche over what he can do,” one Trump administration figure said.
Mr Trump has renewed his criticism of the location of the new £730million US embassy in London calling Vauxhall “lousy” and “horrible”. Speaking at a rally in Michigan, the president reiterated that he refused to be at the opening of the building earlier this year.