The Quickest Way To Get Trump To Stop Tweeting

If Donald Trump has one vice, it might be tweeting. But are the days of Trump's tweets on about to come to an end? Trump said he would give up tweeting as president during a campaign event in Rhode Island on Monday. "You know, I tweeted today. @realDonaldTrump. I tweet," Trump said while speaking at a rally in Warwick. "Don’t worry, I'll give it up after I'm president. We won't tweet anymore. I don't know. Not presidential."

With the presidential primary well into its second half, the Republican frontrunner has been fielding questions all month regarding when he plans to give in to his family's desire to see him act more presidential. Twitter, it seems, could be the first thing to go when Trump opts to tone it down. Even Melania Trump reportedly wants him to stop.

This wasn't the first time Trump has mentioned that he'd tweet with far less vigor if elected president. In March, he told ABC's This Week that his Twitter activity would likely decrease if he won the election. "It's a great way of communicating, as far as I'm concerned. But I'm not going to be doing it very much as president," he said.

Few have ever captivated the Twitterverse like Trump, who tosses tweets out in an informal but often incendiary conversational style, which has catapulted him into being one of most-watched users. The Republican presidential frontrunner has more Twitter followers than any other candidate in the race — well over 7.5 million. While his provocative style seems to have been effective in helping him appear accessible to his supporters, others have used them as fuel to mock and ridicule the businessman, which is likely why Trump tweets couldn't realistically live on if he moved into the White House.

Could you imagine what Trump might impulsively tweet about other world leaders or sensitive diplomatic relations? The truth is that you don't have to imagine it, because it's already been done. He insulted German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Twitter in December of 2015 after she was named as TIME's Person of the Year. He's also called Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal "dopey."

There's a lot of precedent for presidential tweeting. The official Twitter account of the president of the United States, currently helmed by Barack Obama, was only launched in May 2015, nine years after the social networking site was introduced. In his first official tweet as @POTUS, Obama touched on the long battle it had taken to get him there. "Hello, Twitter! It’s Barack. Really! Six years in, they’re finally giving me my own account." Although Obama is credited with being the first U.S. president to communicate directly with the public via Twitter, @POTUS wasn't his first time tweeting. He'd responded to questions at a virtual town hall event hosted on the White House's official Twitter account back in 2011.

Judging from Trump's comment, and the heavy pushback he appears to be getting from those close to him about his inflammatory tweets, it seems likely someone other than Trump will handle the @POTUS Twitter account should he win the general election.