Trump’s night of 160 posts on Truth Social fuels debate about US president’s stamina

From apparently nodding off in the Oval Office to a work day that often only begins in the afternoon, questions have swirled in recent weeks about the energy levels of 79-year-old Donald Trump, the oldest-ever US president.

Yet on social media, the commander in chief is showing no signs of fatigue. In a furious spree Monday night on his preferred social media paltform, Truth Social, Trump posted 160 times in less than four hours, a maelstrom of messaging surpassing previous prolific bouts of ranting.

At one point, according to the Daily Beast, which published Tuesday a chronicle of the avalanche of words and videos that appeared from 7.09pm ET until 11.57pm, the president’s posts were coming in faster than one a minute.

Several of the messages attacked familiar political foes, such as Mark Kelly, the Democratic Arizona senator, among six congressional Democrats who drew the president’s ire last week for reminding military members they could disobey unlawful commands from their superiors.

“Mark Kelly and the group of Unpatriotic Politicians were WRONG to do what they did, and they know it!” Trump wrote. “I hope the people looking at them are not duped into thinking that it’s OK to openly and freely get others to disobey the President of the United States!”

Gavin Newsom, the California governor; Tim Walz and Ilhan Omar, respectively the Democratic governor and congresswoman for Minnesota; former House speaker, Nancy Pelosi; Barack Obama and Joe Biden; the former FBI chief, James Comey; and the former attorney general, Eric Holder, were also singled out for attacks.

Numerous other posts were typically self-congratulatory. One video, reposted twice, features Republican Florida congressman Byron Donalds talking up Trump’s agenda, alongside adulatory commentary hailing him as “the greatest president to ever live”.

Another, in keeping with the season, celebrates Trump’s assertion that “Christmas is officially great again”, with a still of himself and actor Macaulay Culkin in a scene from the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Trump has previously denied claims by its director Chris Columbus that he “bullied” his way into a cameo role.

Mind-boggling conspiracy theories abounded. One post credits billionaire Elon Musk, the former head of Trump’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge), for “saving” the 2024 election from being stolen by tracking down in Serbia the IP addresses of computerized machines that would have altered votes, and rendering them useless.

Another states that Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman now serving as Trump’s director of national intelligence, is in possession of documents “exposing” Obama’s leadership in the “Russiagate hoax” against Trump during his first term.

In yet another, Trump reposted the easily disprovable claim that millions of illegal immigrants “registered to vote, and have voted” in US elections, despite it being illegal to do so.

And a video Trump shared from discredited Infowars founder Alex Jones included a caption claiming “Michelle Obama may have used Biden’s autopen in the final days of his disastrous administration to pardon key individuals”.

A notable feature of Trump’s Monday spree was the level of repetition. A majority of the reposts from other people’s accounts appeared twice, once in original form, then again almost immediately with commentary added by Trump, or another person who reposted it.

The US president appears to have finally made it to bed sometime after midnight, but was up bright and early again Tuesday to resume his finger tapping with posts concerning the upcoming Georgia governor’s election, and Tuesday’s congressional House race in Tennessee, attempting to shore up support for the Republican candidate.

“Truth Social is the best. There is nothing even close!!!” Trump posted. Twice.