President Trump said Wednesday that he won’t stop using Twitter to circumvent the news media and that White House aides encourage his powerful presence on social media.
“A lot of the time my staff comes to me and says, ’Can you do a tweet on this or that because it’s not being shown correctly?’ ” the president said in an interview on the Fox News program “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
He said that he sometimes has staff review a tweet before he sends it out. He didn’t say whether advisers ever convinced him not to send a tweet.
Mr. Trump’s tweets have succeeded in dominating news coverage during the presidential campaign and now that he occupies the Oval Office.
The tweets, however, spur criticism that he often steps on White House messaging or redirects news coverage that’s positive, such as the immediate reaction to his speech to a joint session of Congress.
The president insisted that Twitter and other social media let him get out his message and circumvent news outlets that are biased against him.
He named The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC News and ABC News as repeat “fake news” offenders.
“Nobody in history has gotten more dishonest media than I have gotten,” Mr. Trump said.
“Take a look at CNN. It’s a complete hit job,” he said. “No matter what you do, no matter how good or how great it is, they don’t report it in a positive fashion.”
He said that if the news media would not do him or the public the honor of “spreading my words accurately as it was meant,” he would get the message out himself to 90 million or 100 million people he can reach with a tweet.
Mr. Trump said it has worked for him so far.
“I might not be here talking to you right now as president if I didn’t have an honest way of getting the word out,” he told Mr. Carlson.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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