Tweet new year: Trump launches barrage of taunts and threats

President Donald Trump used his first full work day in 2018 to rekindle one of his favorite political pastimes from 2017: throwing haymakers on Twitter.

The president returned to his full combative form Tuesday after arriving in Washington the day prior from a holiday stay in Mar-a-Lago, taunting news outlets with the prospect of awarding them for their “dishonest corrupt” coverage, threatening on social media to curb U.S. aid to Palestinians, calling for the jailing of former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, and publicly competing with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over the size of their nuclear buttons.

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Even as he shifted gears from topic to topic, the day’s tweets covered a number of his regular punching bags, both foreign and domestic. The tweets and the ensuing scrutiny over them extended a streak of the president dominating news cycles by his fingertips that lasted for much of 2017 and carried into the latest holiday break.

On Tuesday evening, Trump seemingly cast aside his prior comments expressing optimism about finding a diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff with North Korea, sending a warning to leader Kim Jong Un that the U.S.’s nuclear button is “much bigger more powerful one than his,” and that unlike Kim’s, his actually “works.”

“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times,’” the president tweeted. “Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

The rhetoric marked a momentary shift for Trump, who earlier Tuesday appeared to entertain the possibility that South Korea would be able to persuade the Kim government to scale back their weapons testing after the North Korean leader appeared to offer up an olive branch of sorts to their neighbor to the south during a national address.

And within 16 minutes President Trump returned to firing jabs at the media, reviving the tactic he has deployed since the early days of his presidential campaign.

The president, who spent a year berating reporters for their White House coverage tweeted Tuesday that he will be presenting “awards” Monday to what he considers to be the worst of the worst.

“I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 o’clock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned!”

Given that there is no precedent for this, it’s not clear what he has in mind. But in November, Trump floated the idea of awarding a “fake news trophy” to media outlets to mark their “distorted” coverage of his presidency. A senior administration official said they had not heard anything about the supposed awards, only learning about the president’s announcement via Twitter.

Some journalists cited the president’s tweets in questioning whether Trump was well.

“What would we say if the leader of Germany or China or Brazil posted tweets like Trump’s? We’d say: That person is not well,” CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter remarked on Twitter.

Stelter, who said he reached out to Twitter for comment on whether the president’s tweets violated their terms of service, was met with backlash from White House social media director Dan Scavino.

“Carry on w/your night @BrianStelter. While you would love nothing more than to see a Twitter [terms of service] Violation for handle: @realDonaldTrump, you and all of your liberal friends have NOTHING,” Scavino wrote. “Keep calling TwitterStop trying to be the NEWS. Just report the NEWS try keeping it REAL!”

Earlier Tuesday, Trump kicked off his White House return by blasting the “brutal and corrupt Iranian regime” for stifling protests in the Middle East, seizing on the wave of public demonstrations in the region to criticize his predecessor Barack Obama and his signature Iran nuclear deal in an early morning missive. The comments came after hundreds of anti-government protesters were jailed in Tehran, where economic frustration has driven scores of demonstrators onto the streets.

Within the hour, the president shifted gears entirely, scorching Abedin for “disregarding basic security protocols” after the State Department released a batch of classified emails from the computer of her estranged husband, former Rep. Anthony Weiner, last week. In the same breath the president questioned whether the “Deep State Justice Department” would act on the revelation, giving life to the conspiracy that officials in his own administration are working to undermine the president.

The remarks were the first of a barrage of diplomatic and political taunts and threats lodged by the president on Twitter throughout the day, who weighed in on a staggering array of issues ranging from commercial aviation safety to the latest leadership shift in the New York Times newsroom to the ongoing congressional feud over protections for young undocumented immigrants.

In an unexpected twist, Trump touted that his tenure in office has been “the safest year on record” for commercial flights, despite the fact that the last death on such an airline trip was in 2009.

Trump’s wide-ranging Twitter attacks prompted a series of criticisms from former government officials.

“Donald Trump is a very dangerous man. He does not belong in the presidency,” said Richard Painter, a former lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, about Trump’s “deep state” remarks on CNN. “I’m not going to support any member of the House or Senate who continues to support this President.”

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper echoed the sentiment, calling it “reprehensible” for the president to cast longtime government officials in that light.

Former Clinton aides and allies ripped his Abedin remarks and tweeting. “Hey @jack. It’s time to kick Trump off this website,” wrote former Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon, urging the Twitter co-founder to remove the president from the platform.

Neera Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress and a prominent Clinton supporter, wrote that she was “so filled with rage at Donald Trump” over his explosive rhetoric on North Korea.

“Words can’t describe how humiliating it is to have this person as our president,” she said.

Andrew Restuccia contributed to this report.