.@RepChrisStewart "quit reading the President's tweets" a long time ago, would "recommend" others do the same https://t.co/tlfIkJtPIr
— New Day (@NewDay) July 25, 2017
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) on Tuesday warned against reading too much into President Trump’s tweets, saying they don’t signal actual policy.
“I quit reading the president’s tweets quite a long time ago,” Stewart said on CNN’s “New Day.” “I don’t pay that much attention to them, and I recommend other people not pay a whole lot of attention to them, because I don’t think it’s policy.”
Stewart’s comments came after Trump launched a series of tweets early Tuesday railing against Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom he accused of taking a “VERY weak” stand against alleged misconduct by former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Trump has become increasingly critical of Sessions in recent days, telling The New York Times in an interview last week that he would have picked someone else for attorney general had he known that Sessions would recuse himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian election meddling and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.
{mosads}Since then, speculation has swirled around the notion that Trump could soon oust Sessions.
But Stewart warned on Tuesday not to “read too much into it,” saying the president’s tweets should not always be taken as policy declarations.
“I’m not saying ignore it. I wouldn’t read too much into it,” he said. “And look, there’s a lot of different ways to communicate with our constituents and some of them are more serious and more official than others.”
“I’m just saying, you gotta kind of realize that this president communicates differently than other presidents and that every tweet isn’t national policy and that every tweet doesn’t mean necessarily something as dramatic as it may sound,” he added. “That’s really all I’m saying; put it in context a little bit.”