Trump constantly 'screws up' White House messaging with his own 'garbage posts': analysis

Journalist Jonah Goldberg on Sunday explained the negative impact of President Donald Trump’s “garbage” Truth Social posts on his own White House agenda, noting the president is “constantly screwing up" the administration's messaging with his “irresponsible” social media habit.
Speaking on Air Force One Friday, Trump tried to shift the blame for an AI video depicting former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes. The post appeared overnight Thursday on the tail end of a video pushing conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.
As even Republican supporters of Trump expressed outrage over the post, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to defend the image of the Obamas as “an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King.”
“Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” Leavitt said of Trump's post, despite there being no ape characters in the Lion King.
Several hours after Leavitt’s remark, Trump’s Truth Social account finally removed the video, and a White House official claimed the post was “erroneously made” by a staffer.
Trump on Friday told reporters he never saw the end of the video.
"I guess during the end of it, there was some kind of picture people don't like,” Trump said. “I wouldn't like it either, but I didn't see it. I just, I looked at the first part, and it was really about voter fraud.”
“It was really about voter fraud and the machines – how crooked it is, how disgusting it is,” Trump continued. “Then I gave it to the people, generally they’d look at the whole thing but I guess somebody didn’t and they posted it. And then we deleted it.”
Asked about his Republican defenders urging him to apologize for the clip, Trump argued he “didn’t make a mistake.”
“I look at a lot of, thousands of, things, and I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine,” Trump said.
Goldberg on Sunday said the incident is indicative of the White House’s messaging struggle frequently brought on by the president himself.
“I take Trump at his word on this,"Goldberg explained. “... Trump's explanation is entirely plausible to me. He was stupid, lazy and irresponsible and forwarded a video only after watching it for 10 seconds. Doesn’t mean he wouldn't have still sent it if he watched the whole thing.”
“My point is, he posts irresponsible stuff all the time,” Goldberg continued. “And that's the thing I thought was most interesting about the Karoline Leavitt response is when they were in full defensive mode, she said, ‘Why don't quit with the fake outrage? Why don't you guys report about something the American people care about?’ And the problem is that Donald Trump is constantly screwing up their messaging by posting garbage like this, which is not what the American people care about. And then the media covers it.”
Goldberg went on to note the “reason you got blowback from a lot of Republicans is now we're in 2026, we are in full midterm mode, and anything that distracts from the messaging that they want, they are more inclined to criticize going into the midterms, including stuff like this.”

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