LONDON: US President Donald Trump, who has garnered a large following onsocial media with rambunctious postings, said he sometimes tweets from bed,though he occasionally allows others to post his words.

Trump frequently uses Twitter to announce policy, assail his adversariesand to tangle with countries, including North Korea, over world affairs.The @realDonaldTrump account had 47.2 million users as of Sunday.

In an interview with Britain’s ITV channel, he appeared to appreciate thewide impact of his postings in Twitter and said that he needed social mediato communicate with voters in the era of what he termed fake news.

“If I don’t have that form of communication I can’t defend myself,” Trumpsaid in an interview broadcast on Sunday. “I get a lot of fake news, a lotof news that is very false or made up.”

It was a crazy situation, he said, that many people in the world waited forhis tweets. He usually tweets himself, sometimes from bed.

When asked about whether he was lying in bed with his phone thinking of howto wind people up, Trump said: “Well, perhaps sometimes in bed, perhapssometimes at breakfast or lunch or whatever, but generally speaking duringthe early morning, or during the evening I can do whatever, but I am verybusy during the day, very long hours. I am busy.”

“I will sometimes just dictate out something really quickly and give it toone of my people to put it on,” he said.

Asked about eating burgers and drinking Coke, Trump, 71, said: “I eat finefood, really from some of the finest chefs in the world, I eat healthyfood, I also have some of that food on occasion… I think I eat actuallyquite well.”

Trump said that he was very popular in the United Kingdom. Some Britishpoliticians have called for Trump not to visit and 1.86 million people havesigned a petition asking for him to be banned from entering the UnitedKingdom.

“I get so much fan mail from people in your country – they love my sense ofsecurity, they love what I am saying about many different things,” Trumpsaid.

BREXIT

Trump would take a “tougher” approach to Brexit negotiations than BritishPrime Minister Theresa May.

When asked if May was in a “good position” regarding the ongoing Brexittalks, Trump replied: “Would it be the way I negotiate? No, I wouldn’tnegotiate it the way it’s [being] negotiated … I would have had a differentattitude.”

Pressed on how his approach would be different, he said: “I would have saidthe European Union is not cracked up to what it’s supposed to be. I wouldhave taken a tougher stand in getting out.”

He said the United States would do a post-Brexit trade deal with the UnitedKingdom.

He was pressed on how some women opposed him and he said he supported womenand that many women understood that.

Trump said women in particular liked his support for a strong military asthey often wanted to feel safe at home.

“There’s nobody better than me on the military… I think women really likethat. I think they want to be safe at home,” Trump said. “I have tremendousrespect for women.”

“No, I wouldn’t say I am a feminist. I mean, I think that would be maybegoing too far: I am for women, I am for men, I am for everyone.”

He said French President Emmanuel Macron was a friend and that he liked hima lot. – AGENCIES