At a rally in South Carolina on Friday, presidential candidate Donald Trump called on attendees to boycott Apple over the company’s resistance to unlocking one of the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhones. Apple CEO Tim Cook released an impassioned letter about the company’s stance on Wednesday after it received a federal order to unlock the device for the FBI.
Trump was, apparently, not pleased. “What I think you ought to do is boycott Apple until such a time as they give that security number,” Trump said.
He added, “How do you like that? I just thought of it. Boycott Apple.” A true feat of extemporaneous speaking.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Twitter account was publishing tweets about his speech from an iPhone.
The Washington Post reported in September that Trump tweets from an iPhone in the evenings (usually dictating tweets to an assistant during the day). But the New York Times reported in October that he uses a Samsung Galaxy smartphone. Presumably Trump’s tweets during his Friday speech were preprogrammed or coming from an aide. Either way, his team is going to need to shape up.
Trump has expressed strong feelings about Apple before. In January 2014 he said he had sold all of his Apple stock ahead of the company’s first-quarter earnings because of “their dumb refusal to give the option of a larger iPhone screen like Samsung.”
Now Trump supporters with iPhones face the challenge of reconciling their allegiances.
