AP FACT CHECK: Trump vs. Twitter on truth and consequences

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and Twitter tangled over truth and consequences this past week as the social media giant flagged the president's tweets for spreading false information and potentially inciting violence.

The episode left Trump fuming and threatening reprisals against the platform he uses constantly to hint at or lay out policy, talk up his record, sound off on critics and spread conspiracy theories and misinformation.

And in the same week that Twitter gave Trump a pass on his baseless innuendo about a broadcaster, the organization was left juggling fraught questions about freedom of expression and when and how to gag a president.

On and off social media, Trump stretched the facts or shredded them as he tried to make the best of a U.S. death toll surpassing 100,000 from the coronavirus, misrepresented his predecessor's record on drug prices and toyed with the dangerous idea of taking insulin just because.

Here's a look back:

100,000 DEATHS

TRUMP: “For all of the political hacks out there, if I hadn’t done my job well, & early, we would have lost 1 1/2 to 2 Million People, as opposed to the 100,000 plus that looks like will be the number.” — tweet Tuesday, before the toll of known deaths passed 100,000.

THE FACTS: This opinion comes from his ego, not science, and evades the fact that the U.S. has experienced far more known sickness and death from COVID-19 than any other country. Well-documented failures in U.S. testing and gaps in containment in the crucial early weeks contributed to the severity of the crisis.

Early in the U.S. outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the death toll could have reached or exceeded 2 million if no steps had been taken to contain the disease. That is to say, if public health...