Secretary Bernhardt Has Taken to Twitter to Defend the Indefensible From Rightfully Upset Public Lands Users

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is following the in the President’s footsteps beyond his continued appeals to corporate special interest allies: his official Twitter has seen an influx of reply activity in recent weeks, often using combative language to push back against rightful online critique. A breaking story from E&E News examined the recent up-tick in tweets by the Secretary. 

“Unbecoming is the word that comes to mind for a U.S Interior Secretary. Is this work Bernhardt is doing while being paid on the taxpayer dime, spending his time scrolling through Twitter and replying to concerned Americans with combative retorts? America’s public lands deserve an Interior Secretary who is focused on protecting, preserving, and conserving — not spending time on our dime trolling,” said Jayson O’Neill, Deputy Director of Western Values Project.

Armed with over 7,000 followers, Sec. Bernhardt has taken to responding to smaller accounts, like @KishofDeath, who touts 123 followers. In another instance, Sec. Bernhardt responded harshly to @vegan4wall, a twitter account with fewer than 25 follows. It’s unclear what the motivation is behind these responses, other than ego and anger.  

In perhaps the most outrageous example, Sec. Bernhardt responded to a critique calling him an “oil and gas lobbyist” – which is true. Sec. Bernhardt fired, saying the tweet lacked “accuracy,” – which is untrue.

One of Sec. Bernhardt’s Recent Tweets Sent from His iPhone

Previously, the department employed an official Twitter account of the United States Department of the Interior labeled No Bull from the Bison under the handle @NoBullBison, claiming the account would be a ‘Bison bringing the facts – calling out the bull.’ The account has not tweeted since November 2019. 

“Last week Interior was attacking the New York Times, and now this from the Interior Secretary. This is following a general trend from the Trump administration as the entire mess tries to defend the indefensible. While we’re not sure what happened to the department’s supposedly official Bison account — maybe it’s in quarantine — but we are sure that an Interior Secretary has better things to do with this time,” continued O’Neill.