President Donald Trump tweeted a satire website’s claim about Twitter and Joe Biden on Friday, as part of an early morning tweet storm.
The president, who loves to decry ‘fake news,’ tweeted an article from The Babylon Bee, a conservative equivalent of The Onion that describes itself as ‘the world’s best satire site, totally inerrant in all its truth claims.’
The motto on the Bee’s Twitter page reads: ‘Fake news you can trust.’
Trump used the article to accuse Twitter of shutting down on Thursday to slow the distribution of a story about emails on meetings with Ukrainian officials allegedly obtained from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden.
He tweeted the article headline – ‘Twitter Shuts Down Entire Network To Slow Spread Of Negative Biden News’ – and added his own commentary: ‘Wow, this has never been done in history. This includes his really bad interview last night. Why is Twitter doing this. Bringing more attention to Sleepy Joe & Big T.’
President Donald Trump tweeted a satire website’s claim about Twitter and Joe Biden
The Babylon Bee, a conservative equivalent of The Onion, describes itself as ‘the world’s best satire site, totally inerrant in all its truth claims’
He later clarified that his ‘Big T’ reference was to Big Tech and not to Trump.
‘Big T was not a reference to me, but rather to Big Tech, which should have been properly pointed out in Twitter’s Fake Trending Section!,’ he tweeted.
After Trump’s touting of the Babylon Bee, the site’s CEO Seth Dillon tweeted: ‘The Babylon Bee is the president’s most trusted news source.’
Twitter was down for a few hours on Thursday, which the company said was due to an internal problem with their systems and not because it was hacked.
Meanwhile, Twitter blocked the accounts of Trump’s campaign and the personal account of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany after they shared stories about Hunter Biden’s Ukraine emails.
The links blocked by Twitter contained stories about emails between Hunter Biden and a Ukraine official who claimed he’d been introduced to Joe Biden. It also contained images of Hunter Biden.
The information was provided by Rudy Giuliani to the New York Post after a computer repair store owner said he’d found it on a hard drive.
The store owner said a man who he was unable to identify brought three computers into his store for repair last fall. He said he then made a copy of the emails and images on the hard drive, and provided it to the FBI and to Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer.
The original stories, which also also contained business email addresses, purported to expose corrupt dealings by Joe Biden and his son in Ukraine.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is accused by Republicans of political bias for allegedly censoring a news report alleging corruption by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden
Twitter’s Jack Dorsey apologized for not providing ‘context’ to the company’s decision to block tweets
Senate Republicans announced Thursday they plan to haul in Twitter chief Jack Dorsey for testimony about social media companies blocking users from sharing the explosive reports about Hunter Biden..
They plan to subpoena Dorsey to appear before the Judiciary Committee days before Election Day.
‘We have seen big tech, we’ve seen Twitter and Facebook actively interfering in this election in a way that has no precedent in the history of our country,’ fumed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Dorsey apologized Thursday for the company’s speedy action, which he said lacked adequate explanation.
Twitter initially said the story violated policies on ‘hacked materials’ and on ‘personal and private information.’
‘Our communication around our actions on the NYPost article was not great. And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable,’ Dorsey said.
He then linked to a statement from the company that said it was restricting the link because ‘personal and private information’ had been shared in the story.
In his Friday Twitter storm, Trump also complained Biden wasn’t asked about his son Hunter’s emails about the Ukraine during his town hall meeting.
Coming off a combative town hall of his own with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, Trump spent Friday morning in a tweet storm – sending off more than 30 missives featuring complaints about the Bidens, praise for Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and an accusation that Twitter was down on Thursday to slow the online spread of a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The president claimed his Biden had a ‘very bad showing’ at his town hall with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and slammed the network for not asking about Hunter.
‘Sleepy Joe Biden had a very bad showing last night, despite the fact that @GStephanopoulos didn’t ask him any questions on his being a ‘corrupt politician’. Big Tech & Lamestream Media are working hard to hide this corruption!!!,’ Trump wrote.
President Donald Trump complained Democratic rival Joe Biden wasn’t asked about son Hunter Biden’s emails with the Ukraine during his town hall
Joe Biden participated in a town hall with ABC News – going head to head with President Trump, who had one with NBC News; the town halls replaced the second scheduled presidential debate
Here’s Hunter: The Democratic candidate’s son’s photos were part of the laptop which was obtained by Rudy Giuliani’s attorney and has now been released by the president’s lawyer
Trump echoed criticism from conservatives, who complained that Guthrie interrupted Trump with a ‘question every 12 seconds’ while Stephanopoulos was accused of forgetting to ask Joe Biden about his son Hunter’s emails.
In his combative town hall, Trump struggled to answer questions about his COVID testing, his taxes and his debt.
The two presidential contenders had dueling town halls Thursday night in place of the second presidential debate that was canceled after Trump refused to participate virtually.
During his town hall, NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie pressed Trump on his Twitter habits, asking him why he retweeted conspiracy theories.
‘Let’s waste a whole show,’ he snapped at her when she asked him about the retweets on his Twitter feed, which have contained QAnon conspiracy theories and unproven claims Seal Team Six killed Osama bin Laden’s body double.
‘You’re not somebody’s crazy uncle who can just retweet whatever,’ Guthrie told him as she pressed him on the issue.