President Donald Trump's most popular tweet since he was sworn in is strikingly conciliatory, for someone whose style on Twitter can be so confrontational.
That style shone through the Sunday after his inauguration, when he needled the Women's March on Washington for being too late to affect the election. But that tweet got about half as much engagement as one posted later that day, which recognized the rights of all people to protest peacefully.
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"Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don't always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views," @realDonaldTrump wrote.
The tweet garnered over 480,000 likes and retweets combined — the tweet he's gotten the most engagement on since taking office as the 45th U.S. president, either on @realDonaldTrump or the presidential account, @POTUS.
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Trump's Twitter activity was a hallmark of his campaign for president, and he's used it for years, racking up more than 34,000 tweets since joining the service in March 2009.
In his second most-engaging tweet, judged by combined likes and retweets, Trump shared a video of his first dance at an inaugural ball with first lady Melania Trump, saying, "THANK YOU for another wonderful evening in Washington, D.C. TOGETHER, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN," followed by an American flag emoji."
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The tweet that got the least engagement during his presidency was a link to a Facebook post with a statement on U.S. Mexico relations, earning just over 3,000 retweets and about 12,500 likes.
The @POTUS account has 14.8 million followers and Trump's personal account has 23.3 million followers, a number that's steadily grown since he was elected president. That makes him one of the most followed people on the social media service — though former President Barack Obama has just under 84 million followers.
While his Twitter following may be growing, Trump's social media habits have received plenty of criticism, too.
In his first speech as Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer said "America cannot afford a Twitter presidency" because of the "real work" that needs to be done.
The Associated Press reported last week that all of Trump's tweets are considered presidential records, and would be preserved. Most of his tweets since taking office have come through his personal Twitter account.
Unlike his predecessor, Trump hasn't waited to jump online and tweet about hotly debated policies and orders, and some of those posts have done very well.
The fourth-ranked tweet argued that it's not important whether his executive order keeping people from seven Muslim-majority from traveling to the U.S. should be called a ban, getting 56,699 retweets and 229,601 likes as of midday Thursday. More than 200,000 people liked a tweet saying he will "send in the Feds" to Chicago if it "doesn't fix the horrible 'carnage' going on" — the seventh-most engagement among his presidential tweets.
Trump's most popular tweet ever? It contained just six words, but it's been retweeted and liked nearly 1 million times since it was sent early on Election Day:
NBC's Asher Klein contributed to this report.
Photo Credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images
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