WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has created a destructive atmosphere of “chaos politics” with his prolific use of Twitter for policy announcements and incendiary remarks alike, former secretary of state John Kerry said Thursday.
In an interview with Swiss public broadcaster RTS in Geneva, Kerry slammed Trump’s frequent and often controversial tweets.
“More and more Americans are finding the tweet phenomenon tiring, destructive and interruptive of the genuine kind of dialogue,” he said.
“I think it creates a chaos politics, and that’s not good,” he added.
Read: US politician introduces ‘COVFEFE Act’ to preserve Trump’s tweets as official statements
Trump has used Twitter as a platform to announce major shifts in both domestic and foreign policy, to criticise allies, taunt US adversaries and threaten North Korea.
“It is without precedent, this kind of chaotic presidency. I can’t think of any time it has been seen in modern times,” the former secretary of state said.
Kerry, who served as the top US diplomat for four years under former President Barack Obama, was particularly critical of Trump’s tweets publicly chastising current Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
Earlier this month, the president for instance took to Twitter to accuse the former ExxonMobil CEO of “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with North Korea.
Such tweets are “very, very unproductive, very counter-productive,” Kerry said.
“I think it is very difficult to be a secretary of state when the president is undermining you very publically, as he has been,” he added.
President Donald Trump’s tweets would be preserved as presidential records if a Democratic lawmaker’s proposed COVFEFE Act becomes law.
Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois had introduced on June 13 the “Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically For Engagement” Act that would amend the Presidential Records Act and require the National Archives to store presidential tweets and other social media interactions.
“If the president is going to take to social media to make sudden public policy proclamations, we must ensure that these statements are documented and preserved for future reference,” Quigley, a member of the House intelligence committee, said in a statement.
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