Alex Wong / Getty
Donald Trump Jr. accused Twitter of targeting him for his conservative views and “spreading misinformation” the day after false claims that he had referred to Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott, as a Democrat, went viral.
Trump posted his response in a Friday video on Rumble, a conservative-preferred video-sharing app. He denounced the “selective interpretation” of his tweet defending Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) from criticism for taking a trip to Cancún, Mexico, amid massive power cuts and cold weather in Texas, referring to the trip as “a little public relations accident” on Friday.
The viral tweet criticized the “hypocrisy of those who tried to cancel Ted Cruz and who remained totally silent about the incompetence of their Democratic governor”, which many interpreted as a reference to Abbott. However, neither the tweet nor the Rumble video referred to Abbott, with the video appearing to refer to unidentified Democratic governors. In a tweet hours earlier, Trump criticized New York’s Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo while defending Cruz.
“All these people who always want to criticize disinformation and talk about it don’t seem to have a problem spreading disinformation,” said Trump in Friday’s Rumble video. “I’m being a trend on Twitter because people seem to be making a reference to a video I posted yesterday, saying that if only people who were so outraged by Ted Cruz for a little public relations accident … were really outraged by your Democrat governors. “
“Nowhere in the tweet or video did I talk about the Democratic governor of Texas,” continued Trump. “Because Greg Abbott, who is a friend of mine, is a Republican governor of Texas. But I’m trending on Twitter because they can say that referring generically to Democratic governors means I don’t know the difference from who’s really running for the state of Texas. “
Trump went on to state that his tweet’s tendency was “censorship” and “selective interpretation” aimed exclusively at conservatives, while offering “show you the pictures of Greg Abbott and me, if you need to” to those who doubted his relationship with Abbott. He also denounced Twitter’s “fact checkers” for allowing misleading representations of the tweet to go viral. Twitter declined to comment on Newsweek.
The new Rumble video had not been shared by Trump on Twitter late on Friday. Although Trump is active on Twitter, he often criticizes the platform, accusing the company and many users of an anti-conservative party bias. His criticisms increased after Twitter permanently banned his father, former President Donald Trump, days after the violent rebellion on the United States Capitol on January 6.
Newsweek contacted the Trump Organization for comment.
Update 19/02, 21:50: This article has been updated to reflect that Twitter declined to comment.