The Late-Night Truth Social Storms That Offer a Window Into the President’s Mind
A WSJ analysis of thousands of posts found that the president uses the social-media platform to spread conspiracy theories and attack his adversaries
May 12, 2026 The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-truth-social-late-night-posts-167cb47a
WASHINGTON—Monday was a typical day for President Trump. He took questions in the Oval Office. He met with members of Indiana University’s football team. And he had dinner with law-enforcement officers in the White House Rose Garden.
After the sun went down, another familiar ritual began: late-night social-media posting. The president’s Truth Social account posted 55 messages between 10:14 p.m. and 1:12 a.m.
The messages, mostly reposts from other accounts, falsely claimed that the 2020 election was stolen, aired frustrations from anonymous social-media users that Democrats hadn’t been indicted by the Justice Department and called for the arrest of former President Barack Obama.
The activity is emblematic of Trump’s account, which operates as a nearly round-the-clock, high-volume amplification system that blends his own voice with a network of partisan and fringe content. Since the start of his second term, Trump’s Truth Social account has ballooned to 12.6 million followers, up from about 8.6 million. Trump—with the help of staff—has posted at least 8,800 times, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
Late-night bursts and high-frequency binges
Monday was one of 44 similar spates of a dozen or more Truth Social posts published from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. since Trump returned to the White House. On Dec. 1, from 8:17 p.m. until just before midnight, the president’s account posted nearly 160 times—more posts than on any other day in his second term.
The bursts of social-media activity feature content from other accounts—including images, videos and text—that appeal to the president and his team. The nighttime missives often include some of the president’s sharpest and most divisive messaging, amplifying conspiracy theories, describing migrants as a threat to the country, threatening to punish his adversaries and mocking his opponents—all while giving a platform to obscure, anonymous accounts.
The account’s most active nights have been driven by posts featuring videos and screengrabs from users on X and other social-media platforms. For example, in the early-morning hours of Jan. 5, days after a successful military operation in Venezuela, Trump’s account posted nearly 90 times in the span of an hour.
The posts included a video clip of Trump saying that Somalia isn’t a nation, “it’s just people walking around killing each other.” Since January 2025, the account has published more than 120 posts critical of the country or its people, including posts disparaging Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, a prominent member of Minnesota’s Somali community.
The posts leave the public with a stew of presidential musings and reposts, many of which are published while Americans are asleep. Most of the messages get little scrutiny, disappearing into the cascade of posts on his account.
The engine behind the posts
Natalie Harp, Trump’s executive assistant, plays an integral role in Trump’s Truth Social activity. She brings the president stacks of printed-out draft social-media posts for his approval. The proposed posts often recycle content from other accounts that Harp or advisers think would appeal to Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.
Harp then logs onto the president’s account—at times outside of normal work hours—and posts batches of Trump-approved messages, the people said. Trump personally signs off on all of the content posted to his account. While Harp often posts content on Trump’s behalf, the president posts some messages himself, White House officials said.
Earlier this year, at Trump’s direction, Harp posted a video that included racist imagery depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, and an AI-generated image of Trump as a Christ-like figure, people familiar with the matter said.
Trump later deleted both posts after facing bipartisan criticism. The president told reporters that he didn’t see the portion of the video that included the imagery of the Obamas before he signed off on the post. A White House official blamed the episode on an editing error.
Harp has frustrated some White House officials because she typically doesn’t share draft posts with the chief of staff’s office, communications aides or national-security officials. Harp has told others she works for Trump and only listens to him.
“Truth Social has never been hotter, and it’s because President Trump offers his unfiltered and direct thoughts to the American people, without the biased media taking him out of context,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a statement. “We don’t discuss internal deliberations of how the process works, but no other social-media tool has been more effective than Truth.”
Praise, venting and foreign policy
Across thousands of posts, the president’s account toggles through various modes: It celebrates and praises Trump, it savages his enemies, and it amplifies his frustrations about immigration, crime, culture and the 2020 election.
Trump’s account often shares AI images that cast his opponents as cartoonish and himself as powerful.
Sometimes Trump’s attacks are aimed at named opponents: Democrats, governors, mayors, federal judges, journalists, Republicans who cross him. Other posts target groups the president is at odds with: criminals, “woke” universities, transgender students, cartels. Roughly 1 in 10 of the account’s text-based posts call a person or group a name, such as “crooked,” “sleazebag,” “loser” or “low IQ.” The phrase “Fake News” appears nearly 140 times.
And then there is the presidency itself, broadcast in real time. Foreign-policy announcements, endorsements and official acts have made up nearly a fifth of his feed. Since fighting with Iran began on Feb. 28, the account has posted at least 240 texts, videos and other messages about the war and the Middle East.
The rest of the account’s content consists of shares: screengrabs, videos and memes lifted from elsewhere. A few come from named figures, such as conservative commentators Marc Thiessen and Eric Daugherty, Utah Sen. Mike Lee and billionaire Elon Musk. But much of the content can be traced to anonymous accounts including @TheSCIF, @WallStreetApes and @NathanielSami, a user whose X profile says they are based in South Asia.
Methodology
Posts that were deleted and later reposted with changes in spelling or punctuation were counted as individual posts, as were posts that were deleted and never reposted.
Visual production by Cam Pollack.
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