Ted Lieu is out-tweeting Trump, and it’s making him a political star

LOS ANGELES – In the packed auditorium at the Creative Artists Agency, a vortex of entertainment-industry power and current progressive political woe, comedian Kathy Griffin – tiny, insistently red-tressed – erupts in full-throttle rasp at the man in the boxy gray suit as he finishes up onstage.

“I saw you on the Joy Reid show on MSNBC,” Griffin says, coming up from the audience to address Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat speaking at the CAA Foundation’s Take Action Day. “You’re giving us hope!”

A trio of sleek female agents surrounds Lieu, as if he’s some TV heartthrob like actor Joshua Jackson, who is on the same environmental panel yet attracting far less attention.

“You’re a rock star,” they gasp. “We love your tweets.”

With Lieu, it’s all about the tweets. Since the inauguration of Donald Trump, Lieu has become a tweeting demon, famous as the man, as the Los Angeles Times put it, “trolling the Tweeter in Chief.”

After Nov. 8, Lieu, like many congressional Democrats, was dispirited at the thought of controlling nothing and constantly having to play defense. “Honestly,” says the 48-year-old second-termer, “I felt hopeless for many weeks after the election.”

Then he reached for his phone.

And out came: