Trump challenges ruling that stops him from blocking Twitter critics such as Chrissy Teigen and Rosie O'Donnell: 'It's his personal account'
Despite Donald Trump's claims about being one of the most beloved presidents of the United States of all time, he has quite a few critics and very famous ones at that. Amid all the accusations about the "autocracy" of the Trump government, his inclination to block his critics on Twitter, the social media platform that he uses quite often, has been deemed "unconstitutional" by the federal appeals court.
According to Daily Mail, the three-judge panel last month upheld a lower court's ruling from May 2018, that forced Trump to unblock several dozen followers. US District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan, who presided the 2018 ruling, had claimed that blocking Trump's critics would violate their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution.
However, the Justice Department representing the POTUS is challenging the ruling as “fundamentally misconceived", claiming that the handle @realDonaldTrump which has a following of 63 million, is his personal account.
The representatives argued that it will remain the same, and therefore, him choosing to block his haters, is in no way unconstitutional.
@realDonaldTrump is the account that the American president uses to make many significant announcements, including Friday's tweets about trade with China, which brought down the US stock and oil prices down sharply. He has received flak for the things that he tweets – at odd hours, especially – and his staff has reportedly been trying to reel it in a little, but to no avail.
Buchwald had rejected the argument from Trump's side, in which he demanded that his own First Amendment rights be protected, claiming that his tweets are "governmental" in nature.
"The President presents the @realDonaldTrump account as being a presidential account as opposed to a personal account and, more importantly, uses the account to take actions that can be taken only by the President as President," the judge said.
Among those that have been blocked by Trump on the social media platform are Chrissy Teigen, Rosie O'Donnell, and Stephen King.
When she got blocked by the POTUS, Teigen had put out a tweet that read, "After 9 years of hating Donald J Trump, telling him 'lol no one likes you' was the straw." O'Donnell, meanwhile wrote, "awww @realdonaldtrump - I get it - its too tough to read the truth... poor baby - I understand don - u take care of u - friend #blocked."