President Donald Trump acknowledged that he’s ‘often’ has regrets about his tweets though he said he relies on Twitter as a platform because of what he calls ‘the fake news.’
‘Too often,’ the president said on Friday when asked if he regrets something he has posted or retweeted to his more than 84 million followers.
Trump, in an interview with Barstool Sports, said it’s not like the old days when people wrote a letter and let it sit for a day before sending it, giving them time to reconsider.
‘But we don’t do that with Twitter, right?’ Trump said.
TRUMP’S COMMENTS ABOUT TWITTER START AT 10:44
President Trump (left) told Barstool Sports head Dave Portnoy (right) that while ‘there are times when I love’ using Twitter, he ‘too often’ has regrets about things he posted
When asked about his Twitter usage, the president said: ‘There are times when I love it.’
‘Too much sometimes, right?’
Trump said the regrets start when he receives feedback about the tweets he posts.
‘We put it out instantaneously, we feel great, and then you start getting phone calls, “Did you really say this?”‘
Trump said that more often than not, ‘it’s the retweets that get you in trouble.’
The president was active on Twitter once again on Saturday morning, slamming Democrats for vowing to undo his travel ban.
Trump also touted an executive order that is aimed at reducing the price of prescription drugs.
Earlier this month, Trump was mocked for retweeting comments by a former game show host lamenting the coronavirus recommendations issued by experts.
The president highlighted Chuck Woolery’s comments on July 13.
The president was active on Twitter once again on Saturday morning, slamming Democrats for vowing to undo his travel ban
Trump also touted an executive order that is aimed at reducing the price of prescription drugs
‘The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19,’ Woolery tweeted to his 686,000 followers.
‘Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust.
‘I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it.’
His comments were ‘liked’ 87,000 times, and retweeted to Trump’s 84.1 million followers.
Woolery, 79, was the original host of Wheel of Fortune, presenting the show from 1975 to 1981.
He hosted a series of dating shows, and his career culminated in 2007 with Game Show Network’s Lingo.
In response to the uproar, Woolery attempted to clarify his views, and added that his son had tested positive for COVID-19.
He said he simply wanted to emphasize the need to have ‘the best information to make the best decisions.’
Yet Trump’s critics were shocked by the president’s siding with a 1980s game show host over experts such as the head of the center for infectious diseases, Dr Anthony Fauci.
Earlier this month, Trump retweeted a post by Chuck Woolery, the 79-year-old original host of Wheel of Fortune, who slammed ‘outrageous lies…about Covid 19’ from the ‘CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors’. The tweet was later deleted
Fauci is said to have increasingly irritated the president with his refusal to back up some of Trump’s outlandish claims and theories.
Fauci has continued to issue stark warnings about the risks of reopening the country amid the pandemic, leading the White House to issue lists of when Fauci made mistakes.
Last month, Trump deleted a post where he shared a video of senior citizens clashing over their support and opposition of him where one pro-Trump protester could be heard yelling ‘white power.’
The White House claimed the president didn’t hear the ‘white power’ comment and was instead focused on the support he was witnessing from citizens of the Florida senior community.
‘He did not hear the one statement made on the video,’ White House spokesman Judd Deere told NBC News.
‘What he did see was tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters.’
The ‘white power’ comment is shouted just eight seconds into the video.
The video was posted to Twitter by another user on June 27 and shows two-minutes of clashes between citizens of The Villages, a massive age-restricted community in Sumter, Florida, between pro-Trump demonstrators and senior counter protesters denouncing the president.
‘Thank you to the great people of The Villages,’ Trump posted Sunday alongside the video.
‘The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!!’
He later took the post down.
Toward the beginning of the video, one senior citizen protesting for Trump yells ‘White Power,’ as he golf-cart passenger chants ‘Trump.’
‘There you go, white power. Did you hear that?’ a counter protester standing by the side of the procession responded in awe.
He deleted the tweet after outcry on social media – including from those within his own party.
Tim Scott, the sole black GOP Senator, denounced Trump posting the video – claiming he should take it down.
In the interview with the president on Friday, Barstool Sports head Dave Portnoy asked Trump how he ends up retweeting ‘crazy’ people.
‘You don’t even look, you just press retweet, you just fire from the hip!’ Portnoy asked the president.
Donald Trump last month posted a video – and subsequently deleted the tweet – of senior citizen supporters clashing with senior citizen counter protesters in The Village age-restricted community in Florida
‘White Power’: One Trump supporter in the golf cart parade yelled ‘white power’ about eight seconds into the video as he held up a fist at senior-citizen counter protesters by the side of the road
A particularly passionate counter protesters (here in black), stepped in front of some golf carts and called the supporters ‘Nazis’ and ‘terrorists’
‘Well, you see something that looks good and you don’t investigate it,’ Trump said.
‘And you don’t look at exactly what is on the helmet, which is in miniature, and you don’t blow it up.
‘But I have found, almost always, it’s the retweets that get you in trouble.’
Among other things, Trump has been criticized in recent months for retweeting posts with anti-Semitic messages as well one that included a ‘FireFauci’ hashtag.
Trump has had a roller coaster relationship in recent months with his favorite social media tool.
Twitter this month removed a meme tweeted by the president after the New York Times filed a copyright complaint over the use of the photo.
Trump posted an image of himself on July 1 that was taken by NYT photographer Damon Winter for a feature on the then-presidential candidate in 2015.
The black and white picture showed a smirking Trump sitting down while pointing at the camera, but was turned into a meme with bold white text saying: ‘In reality, they’re not after me they’re after you. I’m just in the way.’
Later that day, the photo had disappeared from the president’s account and the tweet instead showed a ‘media not displayed’ notice.
‘This image has been removed in response to a report from the copyright holder,’ it said.
Trump tweeted a meme earlier this month using a black and white picture of himself that was taken by NYT photographer Damon Winter in 2015. Later that day, the photo had disappeared from the president’s account and the tweet instead showed a ‘media not displayed’ notice
The complaint showed the New York Times filed a ‘takedown notice’ on Wednesday under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
The move marked the second time in two weeks that Twitter cracked down on Trump’s account, having previously flagged a video tweeted by the president as ‘manipulated media.’
The clip, posted on June 18, had been edited to look like a package from CNN and showed a black boy running in the opposite direction from the white boy with a fake CNN strap which read: ‘Breaking news. Terrified toddler runs from racist baby. Racist baby probably a Trump voter.’
The shot cuts away to a black screen with the message ‘what actually happened’. It then shows the two boys running towards each other in the street to hug.
CNN reacted angrily to the president’s tweet and said the president was ‘tweeting fake videos that exploit innocent children’.
A Twitter spokesperson then told CNN: ‘This Tweet has been labeled per our synthetic and manipulated media policy to give people more context.’
It comes after Twitter in May began placing fact-check warnings on two tweets from Trump’s own account that called mail-in ballots ‘fraudulent’ and predicted problems with the November elections.
Under the tweets, there is now a link reading ‘Get the facts about mail-in ballots’ that guides users to a Twitter ‘moments’ page with fact checks and news stories about Trump’s unsubstantiated claims.
It also demoted and placed a stronger warning on a third Trump tweet about Minneapolis protests last month that read, in part, that ‘when the looting starts, the shooting starts.’
President Trump last month shared a doctored video with a CNN chyron that reads: ‘Terrified toddler runs from racist baby’. Trump’s tweet prompted Twitter to add a disclaimer warning users that it was ‘manipulated media.’ The disclaimer links to a web page outlining Twitter policies as they relate to selectively edited clips
Twitter posted a blue exclamation mark alert underneath two of Trump’s tweets in May about potential for fraud with mail-in voting, a move that infuriated the president and led to the administration attempting to crack down on big tech companies
Twitter said that the tweet had violated the platforms rules by glorifying violence.
Trump has long railed about perceived liberal bias among social media companies.
On May 28, Trump signed an executive order seeking to scrap legal protections for social media firms, which he has accused of political bias.
The order could open Twitter, Facebook and Google up to lawsuits by diluting the legal protection which stops them from being liable for posts on their platforms, and which also allows them to moderate content.