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It's been a "remarkable use of the presidential bully pulpit," said Michael Shear at The New York Times. For much of the past week, President Trump has aggressively attacked Amazon, labeling the nation's largest e-retailer a "tax cheat and a job killer" and accusing it of profiting at the expense of the U.S. Postal Service. Amazon "pays little or no taxes to state & local governments," Trump said in one tweet, adding that it "uses our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.)" and has put "thousands" of retailers out of business. People close to the president say he is "obsessed" with Amazon and has hinted that he wants to "use the power of his office" to rein it in. That possibility has "spooked investors," tanking Amazon's market value by about $75 billion. The president's war "is personal," said Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair. He believes that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who separately owns The Washington Post, uses that paper's coverage "as a political weapon" against him. It doesn't matter that Bezos has no newsroom involvement. The president is intent on causing "further damage" to Amazon, perhaps by pressuring the Post Office to increase the company's shipping costs.
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