Trump attacked Pakistan in first tweet of 2018; in 2019, his chose yet another target

Washington, Jan 2: US President Donald Trump started his New Year in 2018 by posting a tweet targeting Pakistan saying the country had given the US no help in getting rid of terrorism but only "lies and deceit". However, Trump's voice towards Pakistan had changed qualitatively towards the end of the year as he sought cooperation from Prime Minister Imran Khan on the question of Afghanistan, the same country over he which he tweeted.

In 2019, Trump tweeted again on the New Year's Day and this time too, there was a target. It was not any country or individual that Trump tweeted but the "haters and fake news media".

Pakistan hit back at Trump the same day, saying that it had "given free to US: land & air communication, military bases & intel cooperation that decimated Al-Qaeda over last 16yrs, but they have given us nothing but invective & mistrust."

"Happy New Year to everyone, including the haters and the fake news media," he said in his tweet. He also mentioned in the same tweet: "2019 will be a fantastic year for those not suffering from trump derangement syndrome. Just calm down and enjoy the ride, great things are happening for our country!"

The tweet by the 45th president of the US who will complete two years in office on January 20, was retweeted by over 2.2 lakh people and retweeted over 54,000 times. Hours after posting the first tweet of 2019, Trump was back into his attacking mood, targeting a former commander of US and foreign forces in Afghanistan Stanley McChrystal for questioning his integrity and the Democrats over the border wall. He said McChrystal "got fired like a dog by Obama".

Trump had sent out 2,883 tweets in 2018 as against 2,227 in 2017. Of these, while 1,721 were promotional in nature, 1,162 were attacking ones.