One of President Donald Trump’s tweets has been given a fact-check label by Twitter for the first time.
President Trump tweeted, without providing evidence: “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent.”
Twitter put a warning label in the president’s post and linked to a page that described the claims as “unsubstantiated”.
On May 27, President Trump threatened to “strongly regulate” or even “close down” social media platforms.
He tweeted to his 80 million followers that Republicans felt the platforms “totally silence conservatives” and that he would not allow this to happen. In an earlier tweet, the president said that Twitter was “completely stifling free speech”.
“Donald Trump” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Gage Skidmore
Later on May 27 President Trump said that Twitter “has now shown everything we have been saying about them… is correct” and vowed “big action to follow”.
It is unclear what regulatory steps the president could take without new laws passed by Congress. The White House has yet to offer further details.
For years, Twitter has faced criticism for not acting on Donald Trump’s controversial tweets, which include personal attacks on political rivals and debunked conspiracy theories.
This month Twitter introduced a new policy on misleading information amid the coronavirus pandemic.
However, President Trump’s recent posts promoting a conspiracy theory about the death of political aide Lori Klausutis, blaming a high-profile critic, have not received the same treatment.
The notification on President Trump’s tweet shows a blue exclamation mark and a link suggesting readers “get the facts about mail-in ballots”.
The link directs users to a page on which the president’s claims are described as “unsubstantiated”, citing reporting by CNN, the Washington Post and others.
The pandemic is putting pressure on American states to expand the use of postal voting because people are worried about becoming infected at polling stations.
In a “what you need to know” section, Twitter writes that President Trump “falsely claimed mail-in ballots would lead to ‘a Rigged Election’.”
Twitter had pledged to increase the use of warning labels about false or misleading information on its site, but has been slow to take steps against President Trump.
President Trump posted the same claim about mail-in ballots on Facebook, but it is not fact-checked on that platform.
With more than 52,000 tweets currently to his name, the president is a prolific tweeter and relies on the platform to disseminate his views to millions of people.
President Trump has used Twitter to launch attacks on opponents, with targets ranging from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to his political rivals in the US.
While being in Vietnam for his Asia tour, President Donald Trump have fired off a series of angry tweets about his war of words with Kim Jong-un and his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He wrote: “Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me “old,” when I would NEVER call him “short and fat?” Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend – and maybe someday that will happen!”
On November 11, North Korea denounced President Trump’s Asia trip, calling it a “warmonger’s visit” and again described the president as a “dotard” – a centuries-old insult for an elderly person.
President Trump responded by suggesting in a tweet that Kim Jong-un was “short and fat”, and complaining: “Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend – and maybe someday that will happen!”
The president also tweeted out a short tirade over criticism of his handling of Vladimir Putin.
On November 11, he told reporters that he trusted Vladimir Putin’s word that Russia had not attempted to interfere with the US election, despite a consensus among US intelligence agencies to the contrary.
“When will all the haters and fools out there realize that having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing,” Donald Trump wrote.
“There [sic] always playing politics – bad for our country. I want to solve North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, terrorism, and Russia can greatly help!” he added.
He later clarified, after intense criticism, that he supported US intelligence agencies in their conclusion.
“As to whether or not I believe it or not, I’m with our agencies. I believe in our… intelligence agencies,” the president said.
“What he believes, he believes,” he added, of Vladimir Putin’s belief that Russia did not meddle.
He went on and tweeted: “Does the Fake News Media remember when Crooked Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, was begging Russia to be our friend with the misspelled reset button? Obama tried also, but he had zero chemistry with Putin.”
Asked at a news conference in Vietnam if he could see himself being friends with Kim Jong-un, President Trump said: “That might be a strange thing to happen but it’s a possibility.
“If it did happen it could be a good thing I can tell you for North Korea, but it could also be good for a lot of other places and be good for the rest the world.
“It could be something that could happen. I don’t know if it will but it would be very, very nice.”
President Trump will travel to Manila on November 12 for the final stop on his Asia tour, before flying back to the US.
President Donald Trump has defended his persistent use of social media in a series of tweets, following a row over comments he made about MSNBC presenters Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.
The president tweeted on July 1: “My use of social media is not presidential – it’s modern day presidential.”
Earlier in the week, Donald Trump launched a crude personal attack on Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.
The president’s tweets were condemned by Democrats and Republicans alike, despite the White House springing to his defense.
President Trump’s aides have previously expressed concern over his tweets.
However, Donald Trump said on July 1 that social media gave him the opportunity to connect directly to the public, bypassing the mainstream media, whose content he regularly labels as “fake news”.
The resident tweeted: “The FAKE & FRAUDULENT NEWS MEDIA is working hard to convince Republicans and others I should not use social media.”
He added: “But remember, I won the 2016 election with interviews, speeches and social media.”
Image source Wikipedia
Donald Trump also stepped up his attack on CNN after the network retracted an article alleging that one of the president’s aides was under investigation by Congress.
“I am extremely pleased to see that @CNN has finally been exposed as #FakeNews and garbage journalism. It’s about time!”
The story that caused the upset, which was later removed from the website following an internal investigation, resulted in the resignations of three CNN journalists: Thomas Frank, investigative unit editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Eric Lictblau and Lex Harris, who oversaw the investigations unit.
Donald Trump has repeatedly called CNN “fake news” and has previously labeled Buzzfeed a “failing pile of garbage”.
At a news conference in February, President Trump was introduced to the BBC’s North America editor, Jon Sopel, to which he responded: “Here’s another beauty.”
Meanwhile, addressing military veterans at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington on July 1, President Trump promised that America would “win again”, prompting cheers from the crowd as he attacked media outlets.
“The fake media is trying to silence us, but we will not let them,” Donald Trump said at the Celebrate Freedom Rally.
“The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House. But I’m president, and they’re not.”
President Trump has more than 33 million followers on Twitter. Although it is becoming seemingly more difficult for the president to shock this audience, his 140-character posts have been condemned by both politicians and commentators.
Some consider the language used by President Trump as unsuitable for the holder of the highest office. On June 30, the New York Post published a three-word editorial on Donald Trump’s tweets: “Stop. Just stop.”
It followed the president’s tweets on June 29 mocking MSNBC Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski, saying she had been “bleeding badly from a facelift” when he saw her six months ago.
Donald Trump also verbally attacked her co-host and partner, Joe Scarborough, describing him as “psycho Joe”.
Mika Brzezinksi and Joe Scarborough hit back, accusing the president of an “unhealthy obsession” with them”. They alleged the White House had tried to blackmail them into apologizing for their show’s negative coverage of President Trump.
Despite the criticism, Donald Trump stepped up his attack on Mika Brzezinksi on July 1, calling her “dumb as a rock”.
Donald Trump has re-tweeted a quote attributed to Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
The tweet, created by a parody account and including Donald Trump’s handle, read: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.”
The account is named @ilduce2016 after Benito Mussolini’s Italian title, the Leader.
Asked about the tweet in a TV interview, Donald Trump said he wanted “to be associated with interesting quotes”.
“Mussolini was Mussolini… What difference does it make?” the Republican presidential hopeful said when asked about the re-tweet on NBC’s Meet The Press.
“It got your attention, didn’t it?”
Benito Mussolini led Italy from 1922 until 1943, and led the coutry into war with the US in 1941.
The Gawker website said it had created “a Twitter bot that would post quotes from the writings and speeches of… Mussolini” at Donald Trump until he eventually re-tweeted one.
Correspondents say this is the latest example of behavior which would have damaged any other candidate but which seems not to dent Donald Trump’s status as frontrunner for the GOP nomination for the presidential election later this year.
Donald Trump’s campaign has seen a number of surprising moments, including one of his previous rivals for the candidacy, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, endorsing him on February 26.
On February 28, Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett Packard and former finance co-chair of Chris Christie’s campaign, called Christie’s endorsement “an astonishing display of political opportunism”.
“Trump would take America on a dangerous journey. Christie knows all that and indicated as much many times publicly,” Meg Whitman said.
On the same day, Donald Trump appeared reluctant in a CNN interview to distance himself from an endorsement from David Duke, a former senior leader of the white supremacist group Ku Klux Klan. He told the interviewer he “didn’t know anything about David Duke”.
Later, however, he tweeted a video from an earlier press conference in which he appeared to recognize Duke’s name immediately and said: “David Duke endorsed me? OK, I disavow.”
An NBC poll put Donald Trump ahead in contests in Georgia and Tennessee due on March 1 as part of “Super Tuesday”, when 11 states will go to the polls to choose candidates.
Donald Trump’s rival Ted Cruz was ahead in his home state of Texas, while Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton had leads in all three states over Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.
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