Trump: Twitter is interfering in the 2020 presidential election

Allegations followed Twitter fact-checking one of Trump’s tweets for the first time

By OMRI NAHMIAS
US President Donald Trump speaks about negotiations with pharmaceutical companies over the cost of insulin for US seniors on Medicare at an event in the Rose Garden at the White House during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Washington, US May 26, 2020 (photo credit: REUTERS/JONATHAN ERNST)
US President Donald Trump speaks about negotiations with pharmaceutical companies over the cost of insulin for US seniors on Medicare at an event in the Rose Garden at the White House during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Washington, US May 26, 2020
(photo credit: REUTERS/JONATHAN ERNST)
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday Twitter is interfering in the 2020 presidential election. The social media platform flagged one of his tweets earlier with a blue exclamation mark, urging users to “get the facts about mail-in ballots.”
Twitter confirmed this was the first time it had applied a fact-checking label to a tweet by the president, as an extension of its new “misleading information” policy introduced this month to combat misinformation about the coronavirus.
According to Trump’s original tweet, “there is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged and even illegally printed out and fraudulently signed.” The president went on to say that “This will be a Rigged Election.”
A click on Twitter’s blue bar under Trump’s tweet directs the reader to a different page with a number of articles about mail-in ballots. Under a section titled “What you need to know,” there is a summary that reads: “Trump falsely claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to ‘a Rigged Election.’ However, fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud.”
“They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post,” Trump tweeted in response. “Twitter is completely stifling free speech, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!” he added.
The Trump campaign released a statement as well. “We always knew that Silicon Valley would pull out all the stops to obstruct and interfere with President Trump getting his message through to voters,” said Brad Parscale, the Trump 2020 campaign manager.
“Partnering with the biased fake news media ‘fact-checkers’ is only a smokescreen Twitter is using to try to lend their obvious political tactics some false credibility,” he added. “There are many reasons the Trump campaign pulled all our advertising from Twitter months ago, and their clear political bias is one of them.”
Following up on the criticism, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted a thread with several links to different examples of issues with mail-in ballots from across the US.
“Get the facts about mail-in ballots!” she tweeted. “Will the media, and Twitter, acknowledge these real concerns with mass mail-in voting?”
The thread included links to news outlets such as Fox News and the Review Journal, as well as to statements from the Justice Department.
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.