CJ Pearson Claims President Obama Blocked Him On Twitter, White House Denies Tussle With Teen Conservative Star

A 13-year-old conservative YouTube star drew the attention of national news outlets and the White House Wednesday night when he asserted that President Barack Obama blocked him on Twitter. C.J. Pearson, known for his outspoken videos criticizing Democratic policies, said the block came after he denounced Obama's previous tweet inviting Texas 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed to visit the White House. But the Obama administration has denied it, the Hill reported.

C.J. has more than 74,000 fans on Facebook and about 16,000 subscribers on YouTube, where he regularly posts videos with titles like "Why I'm Proud to Be a Republican," "Sorry, Islam. You're not Taking Away My Liberty!" and "President Obama: Do You Really Love America?" After seeing Obama support Ahmed, who was arrested after bringing a homemade clock that allegedly looked like a bomb to school last week, C.J. recorded another clip calling out the president.

He said the administration didn't extend invitations to the families of police officers killed on the job, "but when a Muslim kid builds a clock? Well, come on by." C.J., who supports Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for president in 2016, then launched a petition requesting Obama sit down with him to talk about policy issues.

C.J. said he was preparing to promote his petition on Twitter Wednesday afternoon when he visited @POTUS, considered the official Twitter account of the president. He couldn't see any of Obama's posts, and C.J. tweeted an alleged screenshot of the @POTUS profile showing the message that he'd been blocked. "It sucks that the handlers of the leader of the free world find it appropriate to block any American," C.J. wrote.

Less than three hours later, the White House responded -- again, through Twitter. Assistant press secretary Frank Benenati tweeted "Public Service Announcement: Nobody is or has ever been blocked from the @POTUS twitter account." C.J. fired back with a Facebook video calling Benenati's comment "fallacious" and continued tweeting about the block Wednesday night. He did return a request for comment from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Wednesday wasn't the first time Obama has been accused of blocking someone on Twitter. Shortly after he created the @POTUS account in May, the Huffington Post reported he blocked @MeninistTweet, a parody account that tweets about men's rights.