Donald Trump live-tweeted the Democratic debate on Tuesday night, promising his followers that this would mean “we will all have fun and hopefully learn something”.
That hope turned out to be in vain, as Trump’s coverage consisted almost entirely of retweeting favorable comments made about himself.
Trump is not the first high-profile figure to live-tweet a presidential debate – indeed Vanilla Ice was also offering his views throughout the night – but given the billionaire’s promise to “shoot straight” the mundanity of his coverage was disappointing.
He retweeted someone who was only watching the debate to read his comments. He retweeted someone else who had joined Twitter that evening “JUST” to follow along with his posts. He retweeted another person who was looking forward to his “insightful and intelligent tweets”.
All those people will have been disappointed.
The few tweets by the former Apprentice host that did not relate to his own popularity offered little in the way of insight. Or at least insight in relation to a potential Trump presidency.
The Trump tweet-off began with the man who is arguably the biggest self-publicist of our time – a man who has plastered his own name across buildings in countries across the globe – being unhappy that there were advertisements on CNN.
Get rid of all of these commercials. #DemDebate
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2015
That largely set the tone. The tone of someone’s grandfather squinting at a television set, moaning to himself about how the country is going to ruin.
No one will stand up to Putin! Trump roared.
Putin is not feeling too nervous or scared. #DemDebate
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2015
This was a strange thing for the 69-year-old to tweet, given that he seemed to be courting Putin’s friendship this weekend: he told CBS that he’d “get along very well” with the president of Russia.
Following these insights there were a slew of favorable posts from his followers. Then Trump came close to saying something relevant: pointing out that Hillary Clinton was in favor of the TPP.
Of course this couldn’t last long. Trump delved back into his mentions feed to share some more praise from his followers. Then he dismissed the chances of two Democratic candidates, without giving his reasons:
Can anyone imagine Chafee as president? No way.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2015
O'Malley, as former Mayor of Baltimore, has very little chance.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2015
Perhaps Trump got bored at one point, because he appeared to stop mentioning any specifics whatsoever. At one point it seemed like he was reviewing a Broadway show instead of following a political debate.
Sorry, there is no STAR on the stage tonight!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2015
He retweeted a man who said all the Democratic candidates were “jabronis”. He retweeted another man who said this: “These cats are like bad used car salesmen.”
While Trump spent the night wafting praise his way, another celebrity with famous hair was also tweeting about the efforts of Clinton, Sanders and co.
That celebrity was Vanilla Ice, famous for the 1990 single Ice, Ice Baby. Ice, who also starred in the 1991 film Cold as Ice, appeared to come into the debate with an open mind, and it was interesting to see him evolve through the night.
He went from being merely curious:
Watching the Democratic debate. Wow, makes me wonder who will be the next president.? Strange candidates
— Vanilla Ice (@vanillaice) October 14, 2015
To offering cautious support for liberal sweetheart Bernie Sanders:
I think out of all the Democrats I like Bernie
— Vanilla Ice (@vanillaice) October 14, 2015
After that Ice began looking ahead to the November 2016 election:
Republican or Democrat? Who's it going to be?Bernie? Trump? Bush? Hillary? #hmmmmm?
— Vanilla Ice (@vanillaice) October 14, 2015
By the end, the rapper and actor was definitely a Sanders man. You might almost say that Ice was feeling the Bern.
I think Bernie won that debate. Hillary a close second. O'Malley had a good closing speech. Overall Bernie
— Vanilla Ice (@vanillaice) October 14, 2015
