President Donald Trump is set to announce an executive order against social media companies on Thursday, days after Twitter called two of his tweets "potentially misleading."

The draft executive order being prepared by the Trump administration tests the boundaries of the White House's authority. In a long-shot legal bid, it seeks to curtail the power of large social media platforms by reinterpreting a critical 1996 law that shields websites and tech companies from lawsuits.

It marks a dramatic escalation by Trump in his war with tech companies as they struggle with the growing problem of misinformation on social media. The President has regularly accused sites of censoring conservative speech.

On Tuesday, Twitter applied a fact-check to two of Trump's tweets, including one that falsely claimed mail-in ballots would lead to widespread voter fraud. Trump immediately shot back, accusing the social media giant of censorship and warning that if it continued to offer addendums to his messages, he would use the power of the federal government to rein it in or even shut it down.

The draft order also accuses social media platforms of "invoking inconsistent, irrational, and groundless justifications to censor or otherwise punish Americans' speech here at home." It also faults Google for helping the Chinese government surveil its citizens; Twitter for spreading Chinese propaganda; and Facebook for profiting from Chinese advertising. Facebook, Google and Twitter didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move highlights what Trump believes is a fight worth having. In many ways, the latest episode with Twitter feeds Trump's narrative that there are powerful forces in the media aligned against him, and that his is the only voice his supporters can trust.

"This plays right into President Trump's hands," said Jason Miller, the communications director for Trump's 2016 campaign and someone who has been directly involved with Trump's social media strategy. "They basically handed him a massive gift."

Many of Trump's political allies rushed to his defense on Wednesday.

"Twitter is engaging in 2020 election interference. They are putting their thumb on the scale," said Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, a loyal Trump supporter and surrogate during an appearance on the Steve Bannon-produced podcast War Room Pandemic. "The notion that they would outsource fact checking to people who have been wrong about everything is an insult."

But those who understand the President's social media habits believe it is unlikely that he will change his behavior any time soon. Miller, who has been present as Trump crafts his tweets, said the President views the platform as an outlet where he can speak directly to his supporters.

"It is one of President Trump's super powers," Miller said. "He understood very early on that social media, Twitter in particular, gave him unvarnished access to the American people and his supporters. What Trump maximized was social media's ability to bypass the artificial conversation created by the mainstream media."