President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview that will air Sunday that he will be “restrained” with the use of social media as president.
"I'm going to be very restrained, if I use it at all, I'm going to be very restrained," Trump said in an interview with CBS’ "60 Minutes" that will air Sunday night.
But by Sunday morning, Trump had already contradicted himself. He lashed out at the New York Times on Twitter, complaining about "very poor" coverage and claiming without evidence the paper is "losing thousands of subscribers."
Trump then followed up with a tweet referring to himself in the third person and slamming the Times as "dishonest" for saying that he believes "more countries should acquire nuclear weapons." Trump falsely claimed he never said that.
But in interviews with the Times, CNN and Fox News, Trump did say that more countries, including Japan and South Korea, should have nuclear weapons.
Trump’s Twitter account has been a source of controversy over the campaign. In September he went on a an overnight rant against former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, calling her "disgusting" after Machado criticized him for past comments.
Trump retweeted an unflattering photo of Ted Cruz’s wife during the primary campaign, which was condemned by Cruz and others. He later admitted it was a mistake.
President Barack Obama mocked Trump a day before Tuesday’s election, saying Americans could not trust the GOP nominee with the nuclear codes if his aides could not expect him to exercise self-control with his Twitter account.
In the "60 Minutes" interview, Trump credited social media with his some of his success in the election.
“The fact that I have such power in terms of numbers with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et cetera, I think it helped me win all of these races where they're spending much more money than I spent,” Trump said. “And I won. I think that social media has more power than the money they spent, and I think maybe to a certain extent, I proved that."
The interview will air on "60 Minutes" Sunday at 7 p.m.
