In some cases, such as this one, the tweets were brazenly misleading:

The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process. pic.twitter.com/d9HqkxYBt5 — President Trump (@POTUS) March 20, 2017

Trump’s framing here suggests a definitive debunking. In fact, the video embedded in the @POTUS tweet merely shows the NSA director saying he’d seen no evidence of Russia tampering with actual “vote tallies” in key battleground states. There are, of course, many other ways a foreign power could influence the electoral process beyond hacking into America’s voting machines. (According to a report released in January by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI agrees.)

In other cases, the @POTUS tweets seemed intended to distract from Comey’s revelation and retrain the spotlight on the nefarious leakers against whom Trump has been railing in recent weeks.

FBI Director Comey refuses to deny he briefed President Obama on calls made by Michael Flynn to Russia. pic.twitter.com/cUZ5KgBSYP — President Trump (@POTUS) March 20, 2017

FBI Director Comey says classified leaks to the media have been “unusually active” recently. pic.twitter.com/WumDJSqaFA — President Trump (@POTUS) March 20, 2017

It is unclear who actually authored these tweets. According to the @POTUS Twitter bio, they are mostly written by Trump’s social media director Dan Scavino. But if nothing else, the aide was taking his cues from the boss. Earlier in the day, over at Trump’s personal account, the president had devoted his early-morning Twitter tirade to dismissing coverage of the Russia scandal. “This story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!” he wrote in one tweet. “The Democrats made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign,” he wrote in another.

Trump’s flurry of Twitter activity amid the drama on Capitol Hill created a split-screen effect that was jarring, but not unfamiliar. From the beginning of his campaign in 2015, Trump has excelled at using Twitter—and various other social media platforms—to combat unfavorable coverage, distract from unfavorable facts, and advance countervailing narratives that are tailored to the tastes and desires of his target demographic.

This is one reason close Trump-watchers, including my colleague Derek Thompson, have argued that the president can best be understood not as a political figure, but as a media company. When he is hit with bad headlines, his instinct is not to put out a carefully worded statement in response, and then keep his head down and slog through the news cycle. Instead, Trump immediately goes to work shaping a more favorable alternative reality, and then filing dispatches to his millions of fans.

The most elaborate example of this strategy played out late in the presidential election, when Trump’s campaign—facing a nonstop bombardment of bad press and damaging leaks—began producing its own low-tech version of a nightly news broadcast on Facebook, “Trump Tower Live.” The show featured campaign staffers playing TV anchors and political pundits, delivering a steady stream of reassuring headlines for supporters. A typical broadcast would rack up north of a million views.