Welcome to The Hill’s Campaign Report, your daily rundown on all the latest news in the 2020 presidential, Senate and House races. Did someone forward …
Welcome to The Hill’s Campaign Report, your daily rundown on all the latest news in the 2020 presidential, Senate and House races. Did someone forward this to you? Click here to subscribe.
We’re Julia Manchester, Max Greenwood and Jonathan Easley. Here’s what we’re watching today on the campaign trail.
LEADING THE DAY:
President Trump is ramping up his attacks against Twitter, making the case that political bias at the social media giant is undercutting his reelection efforts amid a bitter feud over expanding access to mail-in ballots during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Trump campaign has long alleged a double standard in the way that Twitter has used its “manipulated media” policy to flag content produced by Republicans and Democrats.
But the dam broke this week when Twitter slapped a warning notice pushing back on a tweet Trump sent alleging that mail-in voting is susceptible to fraud and abuse.
«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,” Twitter wrote in an addendum to the Trump tweet.
The Trump campaign fired back, alleging that “Silicon Valley would pull out all the stops to obstruct and interfere with President Trump getting his message through to voters” by partnering with “biased fake news media fact checkers.”
The president took it up a notch on Wednesday, threatening to “regulate” or “close down” the social media giants.
«Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices,” Trump said. “We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016.»
The latest dust-up comes as Trump continues to use Twitter to spread conspiracy theories surrounding the death of a congressional aide of MSNBC host Joe Scarborough years ago.
Republicans, including House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the third-ranking Republican in the House, have told Trump in no uncertain terms to cut it out.
