- President Donald Trump continued his attacks on Amazon and CEO Jeff Bezos on Thursday.
- Trump attacked another of Bezos’s investments, the Washington Post, in a tweet calling the paper Amazon’s “chief lobbyist.”
- Washington Post editors have said there is no editorial connection with Amazon and Bezos’ investment is through private funds.
President Donald Trump on Thursday picked a new way to go after amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos, slamming a Washington Post headline about his recently announced tariffs on China.
“The Fake News Washington Post, Amazon’s ‘chief lobbyist,’ has another (of many) phony headlines, ‘Trump Defiant As China Adds Trade Penalties’,” Trump said. “WRONG! Should read, ‘Trump Defiant as U.S. Adds Trade Penalties, Will End Barriers And Massive I.P. Theft.’ Typically bad reporting!”
This is not the first time that Trump has attacked the Washington Post’s relationship with Amazon. As far back as July 2017, the president suggested the Post was being used for Amazon’s gain.
“Is Fake News Washington Post being used as a lobbyist weapon against Congress to keep Politicians from looking into Amazon no-tax monopoly?” Trump tweeted.
Bezos, as part of his private investments separate from Amazon, purchased The Washington Post in 2013. Despite Trump’s claim that The Washington Post is Amazon’s “chief lobbyist,” there is no editorial connection between the two.
The headline Trump questioned appeared in the print edition of the newspaper.
The pivot to the Post is the latest in a week-old series of attacks from Trump on Amazon and its CEO. After a Axios report on March 28 that the president is “obsessed” with the online retail giant, Trump has tweeted almost daily to attack Amazon’s tax structure, relationship with the US Postal Service, and effect on brick-and-mortar retailers.
As of now, the White House said there is no plan to introduce a policy directed at Amazon.
Trump’s attacks did make some experts wonder if the president was planning to block Amazon’s bid for a lucrative Department of Defense contract to host the department’s data on its Amazon Web Services platform. Despite the speculation, Business Insider’s Hayley Peterson reported Wednesday that the department is close to offering the contract to Amazon.
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