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But, if participants hoped that a specific battle plan would emerge from the top, they might have been disappointed. Expressing in front of CNN Business on condition of anonymity because their employers had not allowed them to address the press, two participants said the event was lightly loaded. In fact, as one participant said, there was "zero substance".
Instead, the participants were treated according to what the second participant described as a "circus show". Kellyanne Conway, a White House advisor, kicked off a private interview with pro-Trump social media personalities "Diamond & Silk." The comment offered by the duo has been described to CNN Business as "incomprehensible madness".
But Trump, not to be outdone, perhaps delivered the most extraordinary speech of the day after having walked on stage for "Hail to the Chief". Moving from one topic to the other, Trump addressed a lot of issues while he was speaking in front of his army of online supporters. He discussed the stock markets, the census, his Scooter Libby forgiveness, his hair, and addressed a number of other points.
"They invited 300 people to sit here and listen to stories and personal stories," said one of CNN Business's interlocutors.
And all this was outside of his comments on social media. The president, who described himself as "technologically OK," spent an inordinate amount of time suggesting – without proof – that there was a plot to maintain the following tally and commitment on Twitter.
"I had used to watch it," Trump told participants, referring to his followers. "It would be like a rocket when I emit a beauty."
Trump added, "When I say something, a good product that people like, right? A good tweet. He climbs. Now there are: 7,000, 7,008, 6,998. Then they go: 7,009, 6,074. I said, what's going on, it's not going to happen. has never done before, he goes up, then they dismount him. I never had it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about with that? "
It was not clear if the president was talking about his follower account or his retweet account.
While he was walking on the podium, Trump successfully threatened the tech giants again. He added that the White House "would require a big business meeting" in the near future.
Apparently caught unawares, a Twitter spokesman told CNN Business, when asked to comment: "We can not know what we would do in response to a hypothetical invitation to a hypothetical meeting." Facebook and Google declined to comment.
However, even though the event did not really succeed, it helped validate some of Trump's marginal political allies who spent much of the day streaming from the White House and publish continuous updates.
Although the White House has invited a handful of legislators and leaders of traditional conservative think tanks, it has also called for the presence of figures from the far right of the Internet, some of whom have put forward conspiracy theories, lies and misinformation.
Among them were Jim Hoft, founder of the right-wing Gateway Pundit blog; Bill Mitchell, a radio host who promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory on Twitter; Carpe Donktum, an anonymous troll who won a contest organized by the media organization Marginal InfoWars for an anti-media meme; and Ali Alexander, an activist who tried to sully Senator Kamala Harris by claiming that she was not a "black American" following the first democratic presidential debates.
In some cases, Trump even praised the members of the group. For example, he congratulated James O 'Keefe, the guerrilla journalist whose group Project Veritas attempted to deceive the Washington Post's reporters by introducing a source that allegedly told the newspaper that she had been impregnated as a teenager by Republican Republican candidate Roy Moore.
"Someone said that it was controversial," Trump said. "He is truthful."
However, not everyone wishing to participate has received an invitation. It is not clear whether the White House has invited people or organizations that have major social media platforms banned. InfoWars, the media organization known for peddling conspiracy theories, for example, seemed to have been flouted.
"Have people invited to the social media summit been censored by social media?" wondered Paul Joseph Watson, an InfoWars personality.
Gab, a social media site favored by the right wing, was not invited either, much to the chagrin of society. It was also a bit ironic, given that, according to one of the people who spoke to CNN Business, Trump in camera encouraged curators to create alternative social media platforms.
"It seems," Gab said in a statement, "The White House has invited the MAGA" safe "z-list to celebrate and cheerleaders, the vast majority of whom have never experienced online censorship or the lack of platform. "
And the invitation of the artist Ben Garrison was canceled after the publication of a previous cartoon that had been widely condemned as being anti-Semitic. Ironically, Garrison, who has firmly denied harboring anti-Semitic views, said in a statement that he had spoken at the White House on Tuesday and that he had been "asked to keep quiet about all this". He said that when the White House informed the media that his invitation had been canceled, she had "disappointed" him, prompting him to express himself.
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