Brad Parscale. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
President Donald Trump's campaign manager signaled he may escalate his battle with Amazon.Campaign manager Brad Parscale's tweet comes amid a stretch that has highlighted Trump's longstanding disdain for the internet giant.President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, signaled Thursday that the president may escalate his battle with Amazonâ and that it could be a theme for his reelection campaign.
"Do not forget to mention that @amazon has probably 10x the data on every American that @facebook does," Parscale tweeted Thursday, linking to an Axios article titled "Trump hates Amazon, not Facebook."
"All that data and own a political newspaper, The @washingtonpost. Hmm..." he said.
The president's disdain for the company resurfaced this week when Axios reported Wednesday that Trump is "obsessed" with the internet giant and eyeing legal means to target it, perhaps through a change in Amazon's tax status or utilizing antitrust legislation against the company. Meanwhile, the publication noted that Trump did not seem to care much about the headlines in recent weeks about the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica data controversy.
Trump then tweeted about Amazon on Thursday.
"I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election," Trump tweeted. "Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!"
The president's anti-Amazon crusade has now gone on more more than a year.
Donald Trump. Getty Images/Pool Amazon does have a lot working in its favor as it faces headwinds from Trump. An August poll from the left-leaning Public Policy Polling found that 53% of Trump voters held a favorable view of Amazon, while just 20% held an unfavorable view of the company. Another 27% said they were not sure.
Among all respondents, 60% held favorable views of Amazon, while 13% viewed the company unfavorably and 26% were unsure.
Asked by Business Insider last year about the administration's thoughts on Amazon and some of the other tech giants possibly becoming too large, a White House official said that the internet tech industry was "one of the crown jewels in the American economy." But "nonetheless," they said, "the stability of the rule of law equally to all is also a critical component to economic prosperity."
"Violations of the law will be enforced," the official said.