Hillary Clinton live-tweeted the State of the Union address

Hunter Walker
·White House Correspondent
Hillary Clinton live-tweeted the State of the Union address

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign sent a slew of tweets from her official account about President Obama’s final State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.

Clinton’s account began tweeting about an hour before Obama took the stage with a message claiming America “can’t afford” to have a Republican president follow in his footsteps. The next tweet shared a blog post about an empty chair the White House arranged to have in the audience to represent the victims of gun violence. The post was written by Nelba Márquez-Greene, whose 6-year-old daughter was killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Márquez-Greene argued Clinton will “finish” the work Obama has started on gun control.

The third tweet was the only one personally signed by Clinton, indicating that it came from her rather than a staffer.

Other tweets from Clinton’s account expressed agreement with parts of Obama’s speech and praised his record.

Clinton’s account also retweeted several messages from her campaign’s rapid response site, The Briefing. Those tweets highlighted parts of the speech that Clinton’s campaign argued would have been different if a Republican were president.

Clinton’s account also sent out a Spanish tweet that praised Obama for keeping “the economy strong and the country safe.”

Clinton’s State of the Union tweetstorm concluded with a link to a petition and a message thanking Obama.

In total, Clinton’s account sent out 17 tweets and retweets about the State of the Union address. According to a Twitter spokesman, Clinton gained about 1,859 followers during the speech. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., her top rival in the Democratic primary, was in the audience for the speech, along with the other members of Congress. He only sent out one tweet about the State of the Union and gained about 1,062 followers.