In yet another “RealDonaldTrump” Twitter milestone, the President’s personal Twitter account’s number of followers has now surpassed 16 billion people.

Given that the number is more than double the Earth’s actual population, many speculators have accused Mr. Trump of falsely inflating his Twitter follower count with spam accounts and fake Twitter bots.

Mr. Trump has defiantly pushed back against the allegations that the vast majority of his followers aren’t real people.

“FAKE NEWS once again, the totally unfair media is just jealous that I have way more “followers” than Obama, SAD!” Trump tweeted earlier today at 3:26am.

The media expressed suspicion and doubt based on Mr. Trump’s use of quotation marks around “followers,” particularly because Trump has used quotes around words in past controversial tweets only to claim later that the quotation marked words meant something other than what they appeared to mean on account of being in quotes.

“Why does “followers” have quotes around it, @RealDonaldTrump? Are even you hinting that they’re not real, dummy?” tweeted popular Twitter Trump critic @RealDonaldDump.

The Twitter hashtag “QuoteFollowers” has since gone viral on Twitter following the tweet. Press Secretary Sean Spicer commented on the matter in this morning’s press conference saying that the media’s doubt of the legitimacy of Trump’s follower count is just more proof that the mainstream media is out of touch with the American people.

“Look, I don’t know how many people live on Earth, and I don’t have the numbers on how many people are on Twitter,” said Spicer. “But what I do know is that this president had the biggest inauguration crowd in presidential history, and the same people who doubted that are now doubting the President’s Twitter followers, so go figure.”

When CNN White House correspondent Julia Kinney asked Spicer if Trump had forced him to say that, Spicer began to ramble.

“Of course not,” he said. “And I’m not saying it because Trump is upset with me either. I’m not going to be fired, why would you imply that? I always have the president’s back, and he needs me—now more than ever. He can’t fire me, I’ve been here since the beginning. I’m Press secretary Spicey, I am a valuable player in this administration. Spicey’s not going anywhere, isn’t that right?”

The press pool was silent.

(Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore.)

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

