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It has been one of the greatest love affairs in American politics.

Since joining Twitter more than a decade ago, Donald Trump has delivered 52,000 tweets or retweets and accumulated 80 million followers. He uses the platform to threaten war, hire and fire staff, goad perceived foes and stoke partisan divisions. Twitter, which did not exist 15 years ago, has become one of the most famous companies in the world, the new first draft of presidential history.

But now the relationship is on the rocks.

For the first time, Twitter this week added a factchecking tag to two of Trumps tweets when he made unsubstantiated claims of fraud in mail-in voting. The president struck back on Thursday with an executive order threatening social media companies with new free speech regulations.

Asked if he had considered deleting his account, Trump replied: If we had a fair press in this country, I would do that in a heartbeat. Theres nothing Id rather do than get rid of my whole Twitter account.

A day later, in another first, Twitter hid a tweet by Trump behind a warning accusing him of breaking its rules by glorifying violence in a message that said looters at protests in Minneapolis would be shot. The president lashed out again in naturally a tweet, complaining: Twitter is doing nothing about all of the lies & propaganda being put out by China or the Radical Left Democrat Party. They have targeted Republicans, Conservatives & the President of the United States.

Facebook did not remove Trumps same post from its site with its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, putting clear daylight between his approach, which exempts politicians from a third-party factchecking program, and that of his Twitter counterpart, Jack Dorsey. As for the president, whose election owed much to social media, he now appears to be biting the hand that feeds him.

I think the last thing Trump wants is to shut down Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, said Roger McNamee, author of Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe. Hes completely dependent on them and, by the way, they on him. The symbiosis is complete.

Now, I think what Twitter did today relative to the looters and shooters tweet is actually very brave. Its also incredibly obvious and something they shouldve done years ago and something Facebook should do, because if you look at the public safety aspect of the terms of service, that tweet is an obvious violation and, coming from the president, it has enormous risk of causing public safety harm.

McNamee, a co-founder of the private equity firm Elevation Partners and an early investor in Facebook, Google and Amazon, added: The fact that Facebook left it up speaks volumes about the different approaches of the two companies because how big do you think Twitter is without Trump? Is it half its current size? Is it less than that? This is a very brave thing for them to do.

Trumps use of Twitter offers a real-time window on his consciousness at all hours of day and night. Some of his posts are vivid reactions to items he has seen on the Fox News network. Others hurl insults at political foes and the media or traffic in incendiary racism. In the past month they have reached a crescendo of abuse, demagoguery and conspiracy theories, including a baseless accusation of murder levelled at a TV host.

Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, said: His Twitter account has been central to his presidency and hes obviously obsessed with it. Thats what makes this so strange: if he were to shut down Twitter, he obviously would deprive himself of a platform. If he succeeds in having the law changed, it would backfire on him because it would then make the social media platforms liable for his lies and his slanders.

Like a much-hyped executive order in April that threatened to ban immigration, but turned out to have numerous exceptions, the bark of Thursdays executive order is likely to be worse than its bite.

It attacks legal protections that shield social media companies from liability for users content, but a change in the law would require an act of Congress. Observers detected a blatant attempt to deflect attention from Trumps handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which this week claimed its 100,000th life in America, and an outbreak of violence after the police killing of a black man in Minneapolis.

Sykes, founder and editor-at-large of the Bulwark website, added: To be attacking a private company because it factchecked him is a disturbing look, even for Trump. The willingness to use the full weight of federal government to go in and punish a private company for factchecking one of his tweets. Twitter did not censor his tweet. It answered his tweet with a factcheck. In other words, it answered speech with more speech, which is the way the first amendment is supposed to work.

Trump expressed anger last year after Facebook banned seven users including the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, rightwing media stars Milo Yiannopoulos and Laura Loomer, and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, notorious for using antisemitic language. He and fellow conservatives have long claimed without evidence that Silicon Valley tech companies are biased against them.

Twitter first announced in early 2018 that it would not block world leaders or remove their controversial tweets, though it subsequently announced that it could apply warning labels and obscure the tweets of world leaders if they used their accounts to threaten or abuse others. Despite this weeks skirmishes, the prospect of the US president being banned still seems remote.

Sykes commented: I think thats unlikely to happen. Banning Trump allows him to play the victim card and say, Look, I am the president and they wont let me speak. So it makes him a martyr. Its probably better to factcheck him. On the other hand, thats going to be extremely difficult. Are they going to factcheck every one of his tweets?

Does that mean theyre going to be under tremendous pressure to factcheck everyone else? Theres a danger for Twitter that he will drag them down the rabbit hole, that he will make their factchecking of him into another massive distraction issue.

Trump has put Twitter front and centre in public life but he is not its most followed personality. To his probable chagrin, number one spot is held by Obama with 118 million, according to Brandwatch, ahead of singers Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, singer Lady Gaga and TV personality Ellen DeGeneres. Then comes Trump in ninth place.

Rick Tyler, a political analyst, said: He needs Twitter because its his vehicle to communicate with millions of people who follow him. Im not sure Twitter needs him and, if it does need him, then its a flawed business model because Trump one day wont be with us. Hes an old man and so if Twitters business model depends on Donald Trump, its a very short-lived business model.

The presidents threat to terminate his love-hate relationship with social media rings somewhat hollow. Biographer Michael DAntonio describes him as a troll at heart who used the New York tabloids to similar effect before Twitter and Facebook came along. He said of the current feud: I think its about Twitter being his drug and Jack Dorsey threatening to limit his supply.

It has the effect of a drug on him, so the pleasure that he gets from tweeting and from the response to his tweet probably gives him a rush and I think even the thought of it being constrained is painful, probably physically painful in his own body.

Its also him encountering someone who can hold him responsible and, as he makes clear, hes never responsible for anything, and that is enraging. Its like the kid whos been let loose in a candy store and suddenly an adult says, Well, thats all done now, its time for you to leave, and he doesnt want to leave so hes having a tantrum.

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Is Donald Trump's love-hate relationship with Twitter on the rocks? - The Guardian

President Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to rally at the White House, inviting a potentially dangerous mix of protesters after people angry about the death of an unarmed black man in Minnesota police custody skirmished with the Secret Service on Friday.

He threatened the unlimited power of the U.S. military to clamp down on demonstrations, tweeting from Air Force One as he traveled to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for the launch of a SpaceX spacecraft. The military is ready, willing and able to assist, Trump said earlier.

In a series of tweets early on Saturday, Trump also seemed to revel in the potential for violence outside the White House, warning that Fridays protesters would have been met by the most vicious dogs and most ominous weapons had they dared to breach the fence around the property.

He depicted Secret Services agents as eager to battle the demonstrators, and later issued an appeal to his supporters to assemble: Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser rebuked the president in her own series of tweets, calling him a scared man. Afraid/alone and saying she stood with people peacefully protesting the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis this week.

Those demonstrations were not altogether peaceful, though. The Secret Service said in a statement that it arrested six people and that multiple personnel from the agency were injured when protesters assaulted them with bricks, rocks, bottles, fireworks and other items.

Videos from Fridays demonstration showed protesters chasing journalists from the park and throwing objects at officers wearing riot gear, and Secret Service officers responding with pepper spray.

Contrary to Trumps assertion that Bowser wouldnt let the D.C. police get involved, the Secret Service said the citys police and U.S. Park Police were also on the scene of the protests.

Bowser called a press conference on Saturday to discuss the situation. I call upon our city and our nation to exercise great restraint, even while the president tries to divide us, she said.

Trump told reporters he had no idea if his boosters would assemble on Saturday night at the White House.

I heard that MAGA wanted to be there that a lot of MAGA was going to be there, Trump said as he departed the White House, using the acronym for Make America Great Again.

Washington on Friday entered Phase One of its reopening from coronavirus stay-at-home restrictions. Large gatherings of people are currently prohibited.

Trump also tweeted that ANTIFA and the Radical Left were stoking protests against Floyds death, a day after saying he understood the pain that demonstrators were feeling. Antifa, short for anti-fascist, is sometimes used to describe militant left-wing activists.

Attorney General William Barr made a brief televised statement to make similar comments, tying the protests to groups of outside radicals and agitators exploiting the situation.

It is a federal crime to cross state lines or to use interstate facilities to incite or participate in violent rioting. We will enforce these laws, Barr said. He took no questions.

Minnesota officials, including the states Democratic governor, echoed Trumps suggestion that organized agitators were exploiting anger about the death of Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed black man.

The situation in Minneapolis is no longer in any way about the murder of George Floyd, Governor Tim Walz said. It is about attacking civil society, instilling fear and disrupting our great cities.

Video showed a white police officer in Minneapolis kneeling on Floyds neck to the point the arrested man could no longer breathe. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was arrested Friday and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

In Washington, demonstrators gathered in a park across from the White House around dusk on Friday, briefly causing the compound to be locked down. It was just one of a string of protests around the country, from Atlanta to Oakland, California.

Trump said he watched every move of Fridays protests outside the White House, and couldnt have felt more safe.

Had protesters breached the complexs fence, they would have faced the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, Trump said. Thats when people would have been really badly hurt, at least.

Bowser said in her briefing that Trumps reference to attack dogs was no subtle reminder to African-Americans of segregationists that let dogs out on women, children and innocent people in the South. She called the comments an attack on humanity.

Friday nights protests came on a day after Trump appeared to threaten violence against certain demonstrators, tweeting overnight that when the looting starts, the shooting starts.

The phrase echoed a remark made in 1967 by a white Miami police chief when announcing tougher policing policies for the Florida citys black neighborhoods. In a rare reversal, Trump later said his tweet wasnt intended as a threat, but merely meant to discourage looting that has historically coincided with violence.

Trump also said hed spoken with Floyds family and that he understood the hurt and pain of demonstrators.

We have peaceful protesters, and support the rights for peaceful protesters, Trump said Friday. We cant allow a situation like in Minneapolis to descend further into lawless anarchy and chaos.

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Trump Suggests 'MAGA' Fans Gather at White House, While Threatening to Clamp Down on Demonstrations With Military - TIME

President Donald Trump announced Friday that the United States will cut ties with the World Health Organization.

"China has total control over the World Health Organization despite only paying $40 million per year compared to what the United States has been paying, which is approximately $450 million a year," Trump said during a news conference in the White House Rose Garden.

"The world needs answers from China on the virus. We must have transparency. Why is it that China shut off infected people from Wuhan to all other parts of China?" he added. "It didn't go to Beijing, it went nowhere else, but they allowed them to freely travel throughout the world, including Europe and the United States."

Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO's response to the coronavirus,which has hit the U.S. worse than any other country, amid scrutiny of his own administration's response to the pandemic. He has claimed the WHO is "China-centric" and blames the agency for advising against China travel bans early in the outbreak.

"Fortunately, I was not convinced and suspended travel from China saving untold numbers of lives," Trump said April 14.

The agency has defended its initial response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying it gave world leaders enough time to intervene early in the outbreak.

The agency declared Covid-19 a global health emergency on Jan. 30 when there were only 82 cases outside of China and zero deaths, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference on May 1. "Meaning, the world had enough time to intervene."

The WHO has also defended China, saying as far back as February that the country's response to the virus was an improvement from past outbreaks such as SARS.

Earlier this month,Trump threatened topermanently cut off U.S. funding of the WHO.In a letter,he said that if the WHO "does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization."

On Friday, Trump said the WHO "failed to make the requested greatly needed reform" and the U.S. "will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs."

The WHO's funding runs in two-year budget cycles. For the 2018 and 2019 funding cycle, the U.S. paid a $237 million required assessment as well as $656 million in voluntary contributions, averaging $446 million a year and representing about 14.67% of its total budget, according to WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic.

It's unclear exactly what mechanism Trump intends to use to terminate WHO funding, much of which is appropriated by Congress. The president typically does not have the authority to unilaterally redirect congressional funding.

Lawrence Gostin, a professor and faculty director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, said in a tweet Friday that Trump's move is "unlawful" because pulling funding requires Congress, which has already authorized funding.

It's also "dangerous" because "we're in the middle of a pandemic," he said.

On May 20, WHO officials said they worried the agency's emergency programs would suffer if the presidentpermanently pulled U.S. funding from the international agency.

Most funding from the United States goes directly out to the program that helps countries in "all sorts of fragile and difficult settings," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's health emergencies program, said at the time.

"We'll obviously have to work with other partners to ensure those funds can still flow," Ryan said. "This is going to be a major implication for delivering essential health services to some of the most vulnerable people in the world, and we trust developed donors will, if necessary, step in to fill that gap."

The WHO started sounding the alarm on the outbreak in China in mid-January.On March 11, WHO officialsdeclared the outbreak a pandemic, when there were just 121,000 global cases. The virus has now infected more than 5.8 million people worldwide, including more than 1.73 million in the U.S., according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

-- CNBC's Noah Higgins-Dunn contributed to this report.

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Trump says the U.S. will cut ties with World Health Organization - CNBC

At an event at the White House, President Trump is asked about demonstrations over George Floyd's death, and his conversation with Floyd's family USA TODAY

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump said Friday he spoke with the family of George Floyd and asserted that his relatives are "entitled to justice" in the case.

"I understand the hurt. I understand the pain. People have really been through a lot," Trump told reporters at the White House. "The family of George is entitled to justice and the people of Minnesota are entitled to live in safety."

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was arrested Friday, days after video circulated of him holding his knee to Floyd's neck for at least eight minutes before Floyd died. Floyd's family released a statement following the arrest, calling it a"welcome but overdue step on the road to justice."

Trump's remarks came hours after an overnight tweet in which he called the Minneapolis mayor "very weak" and said that thugs are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd." He alsosingled out looters, posting that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

The phrase was first used by Miami Police Chief Walter Hedley in 1967, who threatened a crackdown on "hoodlums" he said were taking advantage of the civil rights movement. Questioned about the racial origins of the phrase, Trump said he wasn't aware of them.

"Ive heard that phrase for a long time. I dont know where it came from," Trump said. "Ive also heard it from any other places."

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Trump appeared to row back the tweet before speaking on Friday. In a followup tweet on Friday, he wrote that "it was spoken as a fact, not as a statement. It's very simple, nobody should have any problem with this other than the haters."

Trump didn't say specifically who he spoke with or when. Asked on Thursday whether he had spoken with the family he said he had not.

"I just expressed my sorrow," Trump said. "It certainly looked like there was no excuse for it."

A reporter asked what Floyd's family said to him.

"They were grieving," Trump responded.

Contributing: Courtney Subramanian, David Jackson

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/29/george-floyd-donald-trump-says-he-spoke-minneapolis-mans-family/5284068002/

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'I understand the pain.' Trump says he spoke with members of George Floyd's family - USA TODAY

WASHINGTON Cmon, @Jack. You can do it.

Throw on some Kendrick Lamar and get your head in the right space. Pour yourself a big old glass of salt juice. Draw an ice bath and fire up the cryotherapy pod and the infrared sauna. Then just pull the plug on him. You know you want to.

You could answer the existential question of whether @realDonaldTrump even exists if he doesnt exist on Twitter. I tweet, therefore I am. Dorsey meets Descartes.

All it would take is one sweet click to force the greatest troll in the history of the internet to meet his maker. Maybe he just disappears in an orange cloud of smoke, screaming, Im melllllllting.

Do Trump and the world a favor and send him back into the void whence he came. And then go have some fun: Meditate and fast for days on end!

Our country is going through biological, economic and societal convulsions. We cant trust the powerful forces in this nation to tell us the truth or do the right thing. In fact, not only can we not trust them. We have every reason to believe theyre gunning for us.

In Washington, the Trump administrations deception about the virus was lethal. On Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, the fat cats who carved up the country, drained us dry and left us with no safety net profiteered off the virus. In Minneapolis, the barbaric death of George Floyd after a police officer knelt on him for almost nine minutes showed yet again that black Americans have everything to fear from some who are charged with protecting them.

As if that werent enough, from the slough of our despond, we have to watch Donald Trump duke it out with the lords of the cloud in a contest to see who can destroy our democracy faster.

I wish I could go along with those who say this dark period of American life will ultimately make us nicer and simpler and more contemplative. How can that happen when the whole culture has been re-engineered to put us at each others throats?

Trump constantly torques up the tribal friction and cruelty, even as Twitter and Facebook refine their systems to ratchet up rage. It is amazing that a septuagenarian became the greatest exploiter of social media. Trump and Twitter were a match made in hell.

The Wall Street Journal had a chilling report a few days ago that Facebooks own research in 2018 revealed that our algorithms exploit the human brains attraction to divisiveness. If left unchecked, Facebook would feed users more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform.

Mark Zuckerberg shelved the research.

Why not just let all the bots trying to undermine our elections and spreading false information about the coronavirus and right-wing conspiracy theories and smear campaigns run amok? Sure, were weakening our society, but the weird, infantile maniacs running Silicon Valley must be allowed to rake in more billions and finish their mission of creating a giant cyberorganism of people, one huge and lucrative ball of rage.

The shareholders of Facebook decided, If you can increase my stock tenfold, we can put up with a lot of rage and hate, says Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at New York Universitys Stern School of Business.

These platforms have very dangerous profit motives. When you monetize rage at such an exponential rate, its bad for the world. These guys dont look left or right; they just look down. Theyre willing to promote white nationalism if theres money in it. The rise of social media will be seen as directly correlating to the decline of Western civilization.

Dorsey, who has more leeway because his stock isnt as valuable as Facebooks, made some mild moves against the president who has been spewing lies and inciting violence on Twitter for years. He added footnotes clarifying false Trump tweets about mail-in ballots and put a warning label on the presidents tweet about the Minneapolis riots that echo the language of a Miami police chief in 1967 and segregationist George Wallace: When the looting starts, the shooting starts.

Jack is really sincerely trying to find something to make it better, said one friend of the Twitter chiefs. Hes like somebody trapped in a maze, going down every hallway and turning every corner.

Zuckerberg, on the other hand, went on Fox to report that he was happy to continue enabling the Emperor of Chaos, noting that he did not think Facebook should be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online.

It was a sickening display that made even some loyal Facebook staffers queasy. As The Verges Casey Newton reported, some employees objected to the companys rationale in internal posts.

I have to say I am finding the contortions we have to go through incredibly hard to stomach, one wrote. All this points to a very high risk of a violent escalation and civil unrest in November and if we fail the test case here, history will not judge us kindly.

Trump, furious that Dorsey would attempt to rein him in on the very platform that catapulted him into the White House, immediately decided to try to rein in Dorsey.

He signed an executive order that might strip liability protection from social media sites, which would mean they would have to more assiduously police false and defamatory posts. Now that social media sites are behemoths, Galloway thinks that the removal of the Communications Decency Act makes a lot of sense even if the president is trying to do it for the wrong reasons.

Trump does not seem to realize, however, that hes removing his own protection. He huffs and puffs about freedom of speech when he really wants the freedom to be vile. Its the mother of all cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face moves, says Galloway.

The president wants to say things on Twitter that he will not be allowed to say if he exerts this control over Twitter. In a sense, its Trump versus his own brain. If Twitter can be sued for what people say on it, how can Trump continue to torment? Wouldnt thousands of his own tweets have to be deleted?

Hed be the equivalent of a slippery floor at a store that sells equipment for hip replacements, says Galloway, who also posits that, in our hyper-politicized world, this will turn Twitter into a Democratic site and Facebook into a Republican one.

Nancy Pelosi, whose district encompasses Twitter, said that it did little good for Dorsey to put up a few fact-checks while letting Trumps rants about murder and other misrepresentations stay up.

Facebook, all of them, they are all about making money, the speaker said. Their business model is to make money at the expense of the truth and the facts. She crisply concluded that all they want is to not pay taxes; they got their tax break in 2017 and they dont want to be regulated, so they pander to the White House.

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Trump, Twitter and Jack Dorsey - The New York Times