President Donald Trump got just about as introspective as he’s capable of getting during an interview with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy this week at the White House.
The interview included such hard-hitting questions as “Do you love doing Twitter?”
“There are times when I love it,” Trump said with a smile. “Too much sometimes, right?” After getting his social-media guru Dan Scavino to confirm his current total number of followers, the president boasted about his “very big voice” in the face of “fake news,” adding, “It’s been very important for me.”
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Then Portnoy, who made sure to point out that his nickname is “El Presidente,” asked if the actual president ever tweets something out and then wakes up the next day and thinks, “Aw man, I wish I didn’t send that one out.”
“Often,” Trump replied. “Too often.” He then went on to explain that “in the old days,” people would write a letter and then put it in a drawer and decide the next day if they actually wanted to mail it. “But we don’t do that with Twitter,” he said. “We put it out instantaneously, we feel great, and then you start getting phone calls.”
When his staff asks him questions like, “Did you really say this?” Trump said that his first response is often, “What’s wrong with that?”
“You know what I find? It’s not the tweets, it’s the retweets that get you in trouble,” Trump added. He didn’t mention any specific examples, but it’s quite possible the recent video of a supporter repeatedly shouting “White power!” may have been on his mind (among his other infamously bigoted or conspiratorial retweets).
Portnoy then asked Trump how exactly he ends up retweeting so many “crazy” people. “You don’t even look, you just press retweet, you just fire from the hip!” he said.
“Well, you see something that looks good and you don’t investigate it,” Trump replied, “and you don’t look at exactly what is on the helmet, which is in miniature, and you don’t blow it up. But I have found, almost always, it’s the retweets that get you in trouble.”
“I’ve seen that a little bit with you,” Portnoy agreed before moving on to bait Trump into trashing Dr. Anthony Fauci.
