President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had his fireside chats on the radio. President Ronald Reagan appeared often before a national TV audience. In 2019, President Trump makes himself heard on his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account.
We at Cheddar decided to take a look at a few of the president's most popular pronouncements on the platform this year.
'Get home ASAP A$AP!'
In the midst of a global uproar over the detention of rapper A$AP Rocky in Sweden, President Trump inserted himself into the discussion and called for his release. Swedish authorities detained Rocky over an assault charge. Once the Harlem rapper was allowed to return to the states, President Trump rolled out the red carpet with a pun, tweeting "A$AP Rocky released from prison and on his way home to the United States from Sweden. It was a Rocky Week, get home ASAP A$AP!"
As it stands, this tweet is President Trump's most liked and most retweeted in 2019.
Trump the heavyweight
Did you ever think you would be talking about a shirtless photo of the President of the United States? President Trump tweeted — with no caption — a photo of his face superimposed on a picture of Sylvester Stallone as fictional boxer Rocky Balboa. This one came at the end of November, after the first round of damaging House Intelligence impeachment hearings. Without using words, it seemed to declare 'I am a heavyweight.' Additionally, the tweet followed news reports that President Trump had a health scare after a surprise trip to a DC hospital.
The boxer tweet is President Trump's fourth most retweeted and third most liked in 2019.
Every dog has its day
One military dog made it onto the president's Twitter feed after a high-stakes raid in Syria. President Trump tweeted "We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi!" The picture came after a revealing presidential address that described how the U.S. military took down the ISIS leader in Syria. The pictured K9 helped track down and chase Al-Baghdadi but was injured on the mission. After making a full recovery, the dog's name was ultimately declassified and revealed to be Conan.
President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and Vice President Mike Pence all honored Conan at a White House Rose Garden event in November.
The tweet showing Conan earned President Trump his fifth-most retweets and his fourth-most likes.
Matt Hayden, vice president of govtech solutions at Exiger and a former assistant secretary of cyber at Department of Homeland Security, joined Cheddar to discuss the surprise phone call initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin to President Joe Biden, ahead of January security talks about the rising tensions over Ukraine. "We're hoping to hear that we're able to talk about the aggression and the leadup of the Ukrainian militarization," Hayden said. "But we're also looking to hear is how the Kremlin leveraged their talking points to try to test their negotiation stance with the United States leading into this January 10th meeting."
The No Surprises Act begins implementation on January 1, 2022. The legislation is meant to curb the practice of unexpected billing for care from providers the patient was unaware were out-of-network from their insurance. Patricia Kelmar, director of health care campaigns for U.S. PIRG joined Cheddar to describe the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars charged to unsuspecting patients and how things will change under the new law. "If we are picking an in-network doctor and an in-network hospital, we should not see those added costs from anesthesiologists, radiologists, scrub-in surgeons," she said. "The other area it protects you is in air ambulances — not ground ambulances, unfortunately — but the helicopters or the airplanes you might need to transport you in an emergency situation."
President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladmir Putin are expected to have another conversation surrounding escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Ariel Cohen, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, joined Cheddar's Ken Buffa to discuss the ongoing tensions and why Putin's request for a conversation with Biden comes now. "This is very serious. This is the worst security crisis we had since the collapse of the Soviet Union," Cohen told Cheddar.
Stocks closed mixed on Wednesday, but two indexes - the Dow and the S&P 500 - ended the session with a new record. Akshata Bailkeri, Equity Analyst at Bruderman Asset Management, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where she says there is a consensus for robust consumer spreading in 2022, especially as the Omicron variant is proving to be milder than other COVID-19 strains.
John Quelch, Dean of Miami Herbert Business School, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says the retail giant is acting in accordance to President Biden's new law banning goods from China's Xinjiang region. Quelch also elaborates on the importance of China in Walmart's overall strategy.
