Poll: Americans sound off on whether they want Trump to continue tweeting

In a poll of 1,000 adults conducted last week by NBC/Wall Street Journal, a majority of respondents indicated that President-elect Donald Trump should put down his phone, or at least not access the Twitter app, while he is president.

The Wall Street Journal notes:

Some 69% of adults agreed with the statement that his use of Twitter is bad because “in an instant, messages can have unintended major implications without careful review.”

By contrast, 26% agreed that Mr. Trump’s tweeting was a good thing, because “it allows a president to directly communicate to people immediately.”

The desire to see Trump curb his Tweeting habit is bipartisan, with 47 percent of Republicans seeing his Twitter use as bad, and a healthy 89 percent of Democrats indicating the same.

The Journal acknowledges the power of Trump's tweets, saying that his early morning missives of 140 characters or less have successfully driven the policy and news discussion on any given day. That said, a large majority of millennials — the tech savvy 18-34 year olds — said Trump's reliance on Twitter is still a bad idea. According to the poll, Trump's use of Twitter is the least favored way in which respondents predicted he would be a "different kind of leader."

Trump's Twitter use has come under fire more times than it is perhaps possible to count during the course of both his campaign and his transition effort, including more than one early morning  tirade against the media, his opponent Hillary Clinton and former beauty queen. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Trump is either incapable of or disinterested in changing his Twitter habits as he gets closer to the inauguration.

However, he has also engaged in serious policy moves on the application, including attempts to influence Israeli-Palestinian policy and issuing a veiled threat to the United Nations for what he saw as an abandonment of a long-time ally.