Donald Trump 'doesn't expect to be believed' when he tweets about conspiracy theories, according to an American lecturer based in Ireland.

Recent days have seen the US president repeatedly share widely discredited allegations about TV host and former US congressman Joe Scarborough.

Meanwhile, Twitter yesterday added a fact check to two of the US president's tweets for the first time, over some of his claims about mail-in ballots of the upcoming election.

The social media company said the tweets contained a number of false claims - prompting President Trump to accuse the firm of 'interfering' in the elections.

Seth Barrett Tillman, lecturer in the Maynooth University Department of Law, spoke to The Pat Kenny Show about the issue.

    

Mr Tillman observed: "I think what the President is saying he has been attacked for three years on the basis of either a setup or a delusion about Russia.

"He's indicating, in his own abstract way, that people say all sorts of crazy things in the media... what he's showing is he can do it too.

"He doesn't expected to be believed on these things - he's just showing what lunacy there is out there, and there's a lot."

Mr Tillman suggested he thinks Mr Trump sees sharing such claims as a "national teaching moment".

The law lecturer also defended Mr Trump for publicly backing protesters who have been demonstrating - often armed with guns - against coronavirus measures in a number of states.

He suggested the US president's calls for governors to reopen their states is normal politics.

He told Pat: "The President is now pushing towards the side of opening up, whereas some governors are holding back - that's a normal political dispute.

"That's a dispute about policy based on contestable policies about that world - that's politics."

In terms of the protests, Mr Tillman argued: "It's perfectly protected activity in the United States, whether you like it or not.

"For the President to tell people who are engaged in lawful protest that he's with them is what's usually called politics.

"You might not like that, and the solution to not liking that is to say - in your country - I don't like it, and then perhaps to not take your vacation to those parts of the United States."

Main image: Donald Trump. Picture by: Oliver Contreras/DPA/PA Images