Trump told Fox News that Twitter has tampered with his 'Follow' button and people are confused

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/CNN)

published 3 July 2019

President Trump's comments about homelessness to Fox News host Tucker Carlson befuddled a lot of people, but they weren't the only puzzling thing Trump told Carlson in an interview that aired Monday night. For instance, he claimed Twitter, Google, and Facebook "were totally against me" in 2016 and he's "heard" that "they're fighting me hard right now." He dwelled on Twitter:

If you look at Twitter, I have millions and millions of people on Twitter and it's, you know, it's a very good arm for me. It's great social media. But they don't treat me right. And I know for a fact, I mean, a lot of people try and follow me and it's very hard. I have so many people coming up that they say, "Sir, it's so hard. They make it hard to follow." What they're doing is wrong and possibly illegal. And a lot of things are being looked at right now. [Trump to Fox News]

"There's no way to know what the president is exactly talking about as far as, you know, Twitter making it hard for him to follow, because of course Fox News rarely presses him for details or proof of any claims," Anderson Cooper said on CNN Tuesday night. But "the head of Twitter recently had to explain to the president that numbers of followers sometimes drop when spam and bot accounts are deleted from his favorite source of virtual applause."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.