Washington: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his frequent use of social media, especially Twitter, arguing that this is essential to counter "fake news" otherwise he would have to hold a press conference "every hour".
"That's a way of getting out the message. Look, we have fake news," Trump said in an interview when asked about this.
"I do like it (tweeting). It's a form of getting out the truth," he said adding that he enjoys press conferences.
"Has anybody ever said to you, 'Mr President, let me have your phone. I want to take your phone away from you for just a brief, shining moment. We don't want any more of these tweets'. Anybody ever try that?" he was asked.
"Everyone's fake. You look at what's - and I'm not saying you and some of the people on Fox. Not all of them, but some of them, but there's so much misinformation being put out. That's my only form of communicating really other than having a press conference every hour. If I do a press conference every hour," Trump said.
Trump asserted that he and his administration are communicating very well.
"The polls are going through the roof. I think the Republicans are going to do well in the midterms, and I'm doing a lot of work on this," he said as he went on to lash out at several media outlets.
"To be honest with you I get such phony news. Everything's a fake. Even yesterday I gave an interview to AP and the headline was totally different from everything I said. The headline was just terrible," he said referring to the headline given to his interview.
"Everything else was perfect. You know, the quotes were all perfect and they've been criticised for it. You know, where did they come up with that headline? So if I gave that up - it's social media. I don't call it tweeting. I call it social media," he said.
"Every time I do something you say, 'We have breaking news. We have breaking news,' whatever it may be, but I really believe if I didn't do that, number one - I probably wouldn't even be here talking to you," he argued.
Trump said sometimes he gets "a really nasty person with a horrible, stupid question from like CNN because they're just so horrible and so fake".
"But I get this horrible question from some reporter at CNN. Then I'll hit the reporter back just modestly hard, and the next thing - 'President hits reporters, terrible, freedom of the press'," he said, mocking the media.
"They hit me so viciously, I give them a little jab and the story is - 'Trump hits reporter'. So it's pretty unfair stuff, but again you get out there whether I do it this way or whether I do it through social media, but we're definitely getting the word out," he said.
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