“I have friends that say, ‘Oh, don’t use social media,’” President Donald Trump said in an interview. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo Trump credits social media for his election The president says the question of whether his tweets hinder his legislative agenda is 'an interesting' one.

Donald Trump is skeptical that he would be nine months into his first term as president of the United States without the power of social media, he said Friday.

“I doubt I would be here if it weren’t for social media, to be honest with you,” the president told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo, according to interview excerpts released Friday afternoon.


Trump, a prolific Twitter user with tens of millions of followers across his social media accounts, said the question of whether his tweets hamper his legislative agenda and step on his administration’s message is “an interesting” one.

“I have friends that say, ‘Oh, don’t use social media,’” Trump said.

“See, I don’t call it tweets,” he added. “Tweeting is like a typewriter — when I put it out, you put it immediately on your show. I mean, the other day, I put something out, two seconds later I am watching your show, it’s up.”

Indeed, networks often display the president’s tweets, which tend to drive the news cycle, and dedicate panels to interpreting the implications of what the president wrote in 140 characters or less.

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“You know, they are well crafted,” said Trump, whose original posts are sometimes deleted due to typos — revisions that potentially violate the Presidential Records Act. “I was always a good student. I am like a person that does well with that kind of thing.”

Trump said his social media accounts provide “a tremendous platform.” He estimated that he has a combined 125 million followers across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. (Trump’s personal, presidential and White House social media accounts totaled about 113 million at the time of publication.)

“So when somebody says something about me, I am able to go bing, bing, bing, and I take care of it,” he explained. “The other way, I would never get the word out.”

Trump framed his social media use as a way “to keep people interested” and avoid the “fake media out there,” which he said treats him “very unfairly.”

“You know what I find?” Trump said. “The ones [who] don’t want me to [tweet] are the enemies, the people who really don’t like what happened with me and winning the election and all of the things. Those are the ones who say he should” not tweet.

“It is such dishonesty,” he said of media coverage, referring specifically to CNN’s coverage of what he insisted was an innocuous tweet about Italy during the G-7 summit in May. “But without social media, I’m not sure that I’d be here today, so I don’t — I don’t think I want to take any chances.”

Twitter also allows the administration to “get tremendous points” across to the American people, the president said. “I can express my views when somebody expresses maybe a false view that they said I gave,” he said.

“It is a little unconventional,” Trump conceded, but “it works. It just seems to work.”

