Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is Donald Trump’s new Twitter foil

WASHINGTON — “Crooked Hillary” can move over. For years now, Hillary Clinton has been President Donald Trump’s favorite foil on Twitter, but now she faces stiff competition from Jeff Bezos, the founder of online retailer Amazon and owner of the Washington Post.

In the last week, Trump has labeled the Washington Post a “fake” news organization whose true purpose is to serve as Amazon’s “chief lobbyist.” He also scolded Amazon for costing the U.S. Postal Service a fortune while serving as “their Delivery Boy,” as well as causing retailers to close stores across the country.

During a flight home from West Virginia on Air Force One Thursday, Trump told reporters, “Amazon is just not on an even playing field. They have a tremendous lobbying effort, in addition to having the Washington Post.”

Trump added that the post office “is not doing well with Amazon.”

At one point this week, Amazon’s stock fell 11 percent, but it closed Thursday, after Trump’s fifth Amazon tweet this week, up 41 points, or nearly 3 percent, from Wednesday’s close. Still, the world’s largest retailer doesn’t need bad publicity as it competes for a multibillion-dollar contract to provide cloud computing services to the Department of Defense.

On Tuesday, Peter Thiel, the rare venture capitalist to support Trump in 2016, and Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz joined Trump for dinner at the White House. According to Bloomberg News, Catz slammed the bidding process established by Defense for the cloud computing contract.

Bloomberg reported that Trump heard out Catz and said he wanted the contract competition to be fair, without indicating he would interfere.

Oracle, which also is bidding for the contract, declined to comment. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.

Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was asked Wednesday if Trump would personally intervene in the Pentagon contract. “That’s not something the president is involved in,” she answered.

The Post’s reporting

CNN reporter Abby Phillip, who used to work at the Post, tweeted, “Trump keeps making it crystal clear that he’s angry at Amazon because he doesn’t like the Washington Post’s reporting.”

GOP strategist Brad Blakeman countered that Amazon shouldn’t try to hide behind the Washington Post, as “Bezos cannot shield himself from criticism because he owns a media company.” He added, “The president has become a piñata for a lot of the mainstream media.”

It may not be the paper’s reporting alone that frosts the president. During Trump’s first month in office, the Pulitzer Prize winning Post unveiled a new motto, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” — generally seen as a poke at the new president that signaled the institution’s desire to return to its Watergate glory days, when two young reporters and a scrappy editor took down a sitting president.

There is a pronounced cultural clash between Trump and Bezos. One is a brick and mortar guy, a real estate developer with a fondness for high-end retailers. The other began his empire selling books online. One camouflages his bald spot with a provocative mane, the other expands his bald spot by shaving his pate. Trump, 71, made his stamp in New York, Bezos, 54, started his empire in Seattle.

Trump’s Twitter war with Amazon has provided fodder for late-night comedians and provided a field day for fact checkers.

Jimmy Fallon quipped that it was part of “Trump’s plan to get Amazon’s stock to match his approval rating.”

Seth Meyers mugged, “This is when I appreciate Twitter. It used to be, if you wanted to hear a 71-year-old man whining about the post office, you had to go to the post office.”

Trump’s claims

Politifact rated Trump’s claims about Amazon and the postal service “false.” “Amazon isn’t causing the U.S. Postal Service to lose a fortune,” the organization determined. “In fact, it’s contributing to its biggest growth sector, package delivery.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial page chimed in on Trump’s weekend tweet that claimed, “the U.S. Post Office will lose $1.50 on average for each package it delivers for Amazon.” The editorial recognized a Citigroup analysis that found shipping parcels would cost $1.46 more each if shippers were required to absorb a greater share of the cost, then suggested reforms that would raise costs for all retail deliveries.

As to Trump’s claim that Amazon pays “little or no taxes to state and local governments,” Politifact ruled that the retail giant pays taxes in all 46 states with a sales tax, although it does not collect taxes on third-party sellers.

Still, Peter Robinson, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan and then Vice President George H.W. Bush, said of Trump: “In his usual blundering fashion, he’s onto something.”

A fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, Robinson said Trump may be unfamiliar with the Postal Service’s original mission of knitting a new country together, but he has the sense to see something wrong with taxpayers funding an institution that, with the drop in American letter writing, now mainly conveys junk mail and packages purchased from e-commerce concerns.

Robinson concluded, “Congress needs to look at that.”

Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.