donald trump
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Former President Donald Trump will be allowed back on Facebook and Instagram, after a ruling by their parent company Meta to reinstate his accounts after two years.
The decision was announced Wednesday (Jan. 25) in a statement posted to Meta’s website. Trump was banned from the social media platforms Jan. 7, 2021—the day after a mob of his supporters had stormed the U.S. Capitol causing a riot. That decision was made due to high concerns that his posts could run the risk of inciting more violence. Twitter and YouTube also suspended his accounts that week.
“The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying — the good, the bad, and the ugly — so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box,” said Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs in the statement.
“But that does not mean there are no limits to what people can say on our platform.” The statement goes on to say that Trump faces sterner penalties for any future violations, which would result in another suspension of up to two years depending on how severe the infraction is.
The move comes as Twitter reinstated Trump’s account late last year after tech billionaire Elon Musk acquired the platform. American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said that the decision was “the right call” given Trump’s position as a political figure.
“While the government cannot force platforms to carry certain speech, that doesn’t mean the largest platforms should engage in political censorship,” he remarked. In a post to the right-wing social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote that the “de-platforming” he experienced should “never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving retribution!”
But there are many more who criticized Meta’s decision, claiming that it illustrates a double standard when it comes to high-profile people. Democratic lawmakers and disinformation experts cite that Trump still presents a danger with his rhetoric, especially as he campaigns for the White House in 2024.
“The Capitol community is still picking up the pieces from the Jan. 6 insurrection that Trump ignited, and now he is returning to the virtual scene of the crime,” said Illinois congresswoman Jan Schakowsky in a statement.
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Donald Trump had more explaining to do this week. A photo he took with an alleged ex-mob boss has raised some questions.
As spotted on Crooks & Liars, the former President of the United States is again under fire for a picture that shows him with Joseph Salvatore “Skinny Joey” Merlino. The man in question is an Italian-American mobster and reputed former boss of the Philadelphia crime family. Earlier this month, the politician and the made man took a flick together at the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach with another unidentified man; all three flashed Trump’s signature “thumbs up” hand sign.
Naturally, the photo has since gone viral prompting speculation why Donald was seen being chummy with an admitted member of the La Cosa Nostra. The Inquirer followed up with Donald Trump’s team and they deny he knows Merlino. “President Trump takes countless photos with people. That does not mean he knows every single person he comes in contact with” a spokesperson said. Merlino also tells The Inquirer that Trump “had no idea” who he was and that there were several people on line waiting to meet him.
Merlino was convicted of several RICO charges including racketeering, illegal gambling and extortion, in 2001. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Since his release from prison in 2011, the FBI and organized crime reporters believe he continues to run the Philadelphia–South Jersey Mafia. Merlino disputes this, saying he has retired from a life of crime. As of 2015, Merlino divides his time between south Florida and Philadelphia.
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Donald Trump was a guest speaker at the memorial service for Diamond aka Lynette Hardaway of Diamond & Silk infamy. The appearance had all the signs of a grift, with Cheeto perplexing sentient humans when he said he didn’t know Silk all that well, despite like…reality
It was Trump who revealed that Diamond had passed away a couple of weeks ago. Although a cause of death was not revealed, it was widely reported that she had been recently hospitalized with COVID-19.
At the memorial service, her sister Silk aka Herneitha Rochelle Hardaway insinuated that she passed away due to complications from the vaccine.
[record scratch]
This is where we point out that the Diamond & Silk buffoons were fierce anti-vaxxers. So Silk’s commentary has many wondering if despite Diamond’s rhetoric, was she vaccinated anyway?
Of course, this is all conjecture. But what is a fact is that at the same memorial service, Trump said that he didn’t know Silk as well as Diamond. “I knew Diamond, but I didn’t know Silk at all. I just learned about Silk. You’re fantastic,” said Agent Orange. “You’re going to carry on beyond anybody’s wild imagination.”
This is the same Diamond & Silk who worked as a duo—and the latter even said Trump treated them like family, akin to his own children, just before he went on stage. .
You really can’t make this stuff up. Needless to say, Twitter is going in, and it’s glorious. Did we mention My Pillow guy Mike Lindell spoke?
See the best slander in the gallery.
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A former Republican candidate and supporter of Donald Trump is under arrest in New Mexico for allegedly conspiring to shoot up the homes of state Democratic officials.
On Monday afternoon (Jan. 16), Chief Harold Medina of the Albuquerque, New Mexico Police said in a press conference that Solomon Peña was arrested in connection with a series of shootings targeting the homes of Democratic lawmakers. The Albuquerque Journal reported that a SWAT team went to Peña’s home and arrested him after an hour-long standoff. “It is believed he is the mastermind,” Medina said. Peña had run unsuccessfully for a seat in the state House of Representatives last November and declared that he should’ve won, even going to the homes of three of the targeted officials saying that they should not certify the results.
A police statement said that Peña hired four men to carry out the shootings and “sent text messages with addresses where he wanted them to shoot at the homes.” It is believed that he was present for the last of the shooting incidents Jan. 3rd, where shots were fired into the home of State Senator Linda Lopez, with bullets nearly missing her 10-year-old daughter. According to APD Deputy Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock, the handgun he used “malfunctioned” when he tried to fire it. The first incident took place Dec. 4 at the home of Bernalillo County commissioner Adriana Barber, and the next was Dec. 8 targeting the home of state Representative Javier Martinez. The next took place Dec. 11 at the home of Bernalillo County commissioner Debbie O’Malley.
“APD essentially discovered what we had all feared and what we had suspected — that these shootings were indeed politically motivated,” Mayor Tim Keller said to the press. “They were dangerous attacks not only to these individuals … but, fundamentally, also to democracy.” Democratic New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and House Republican Leader Ryan Lane issued statements condemning violence and praising law enforcement’s response.
Peña has a checkered past, previously serving seven years in prison for theft and other charges. He has also been an avid supporter of former President Donald Trump, even sporting a red sweatshirt with his “Make America Great Again” slogan bearing his signature in gold. Peña also claimed to have been present at the riots at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, 2021.
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Supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings in a move eerily similar to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
On Sunday (Jan. 8), rioters in support of the former president of Brazil stormed the buildings of Congress, the presidential palace, and the federal Supreme Court in the capital of Brasilia. The mob of far-right individuals numbered in the thousands, smashed windows, set fires while, ransacked offices, and made off with official documents and weaponry. Federal troops were able to regain control and push them out after three hours of their actions.
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Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva swiftly condemned the rioters, stating that the “fanatical fascists” responsible “will be found and they will be punished,” laying the blame squarely on Bolsonaro. His office, along with House Speaker Arthur Lira, Chief Justice Rosa Weber of the Supreme Court, and Veneziano Vital do Rego, the deputy president of the Senate officially declared the riots “acts of terrorism” in a statement Monday (Jan. 9) morning.
The footage and photos from the riots showed scenes eerily similar to the storming of the U.S. Capitol by insurrectionists who were supporters of former President Donald Trump Jan. 6, 2021. Bolsonaro, like Trump, had vehemently claimed that the election which he lost by two percentage points to his leftist opponent in October was “stolen.” He refused to attend the inauguration last week, flying to Florida instead.
According to authorities, over 1,200 people were detained in Brasilia. Ibaneis Rocha, Governor of Brasilia stated on Sunday night that they had arrested 400 of the rioters. But Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered that Rocha, a Bolsonaro ally, be removed from his position for 90 days due to an investigation into his possible involvement in the unrest. Outside observers also noted that local police allowed some rioters through barricades before they began to vandalize the buildings. Journalists on the scene also reported being violently attacked by rioters.
Bolsonaro issued a statement decrying the violence on Sunday night through social media and denied his involvement. Congressional Democrats, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, issued calls for President Joe Biden to extradite Bolsonaro back to Brazil in the wake of the riots. President Biden issued his condemnation of the events through social media, with no further word on if there would be steps to revoke Bolsonaro’s visa.
Elon Musk reinstated Donald Trump’s account on Twitter on Saturday (Nov. 19), reversing a ban that has kept the former president off the social media site since a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was poised to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.
Musk made the announcement in the evening after holding a poll that asked Twitter users to click “yes” or “no” on whether Trump’s account should be restored. The “yes” vote won, with 51.2 percent.
“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted, using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.”
Shortly afterward Trump’s account, which had earlier appeared as suspended, reappeared on the platform complete with his former tweets, more than 59,000 of them. However, his followers were gone, at least initially.
It is not clear whether Trump would actually return to Twitter. An irrepressible tweeter before he was banned, Trump has said in the past that he would not rejoin even if his account was reinstated. He has been relying on his own, much smaller social media site, Truth Social, which he launched after being blocked from Twitter.
And on Saturday, during a video speech to a Republican Jewish group meeting in Las Vegas, Trump said that he was aware of Musk’s poll but that he saw “a lot of problems at Twitter,” according to Bloomberg.
“I hear we’re getting a big vote to also go back on Twitter. I don’t see it because I don’t see any reason for it,” Trump was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. “It may make it, it may not make it,” he added, apparently referring to Twitter’s recent internal upheavals.
The prospect of restoring Trump’s presence to the platform follows Musk’s purchase last month of Twitter — an acquisition that has fanned widespread concern that the billionaire owner will allow purveyors of lies and misinformation to flourish on the site. Musk has frequently expressed his belief that Twitter had become too restrictive of freewheeling speech.
His efforts to reshape the site have been both swift and chaotic. Musk has fired many of the company’s 7,500 full-time workers and an untold number of contractors who are responsible for content moderation and other crucial responsibilities. His demand that remaining employees pledge to “extremely hardcore” work triggered a wave of resignations, including hundreds of software engineers.
Users have reported seeing increased spam and scams on their feeds and in their direct messages, among other glitches, in the aftermath of the mass layoffs and worker exodus. Some programmers who were fired or resigned this week warned that Twitter may soon fray so badly it could actually crash.
Musk’s online survey, which ran for 24 hours before ending Saturday evening, concluded with 51.2% of more than 15 million votes favoring the restoration of Trump’s Twitter account. It comes four days after Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency in 2024.
Trump lost his access to Twitter two days after his supporters stormed the Capitol, soon after the former president had exhorted them to “fight like hell.” Twitter dropped his account after Trump wrote a pair of tweets that the company said cast further doubts on the legitimacy of the presidential election and raised risks for the Biden presidential inauguration.
After the Jan. 6 attack, Trump was also kicked off Facebook and Instagram, which are owned by Meta Platforms, and Snapchat. His ability to post videos to his YouTube channel was also suspended. Facebook is set to reconsider Trump’s account suspension in January.
Throughout his tenure as president, Trump’s use of social media posed a significant challenge to major social media platforms that sought to balance the public’s interest in hearing from public officials with worries about misinformation, bigotry, harassment and incitement of violence.
But in a speech at an auto conference in May, Musk asserted that Twitter’s ban of Trump was a “morally bad decision” and “foolish in the extreme.”
Earlier this month, Musk, who completed the $44 billion takeover of Twitter in late October, declared that the company wouldn’t let anyone who had been kicked off the site return until Twitter had established procedures on how to do so, including forming a “content moderation council.”
On Friday, Musk tweeted that the suspended Twitter accounts for the comedian Kathy Griffin, the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and the conservative Christian news satire website Babylon Bee had been reinstated. He added that a decision on Trump had not yet been made. He also responded “no” when someone on Twitter asked him to reinstate the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ account.
In a tweet Friday, the Tesla CEO described the company’s new content policy as “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.”
He explained that a tweet deemed to be “negative” or to include “hate” would be allowed on the site but would be visible only to users who specifically searched for it. Such tweets also would be “demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter,” Musk said.
As expected, former president Donald Trump announced another bid for the presidency on Tuesday (Nov. 15), and Bette Midler had more than a few reactions to the news.
Watching the one-term president give his speech at Mar-A-Lago, the actress didn’t exactly mince words while live-tweeting her thoughts, starting with, “Ugh. Piggy is speaking.”
“That’s #Trumpto you. He’s giving the same speech he gave in 2016. After a two year pandemic, and a million American lives lost, the rest of us have moved on. He is ossified. May he rot,” the Hocus Pocus 2 star continued, adding minutes later, “Excuse me. I’m going to be sick.”
After Trump finished his hour-long announcement, Midler gave her assessment of the remarks, writing, “He just handed us two more years of his #delusions and #drivel. #unbearable.” She also poked fun at the twice-impeached president’s new campaign slogan “Make America Glorious and Great Again,” tweeting, “IT’S OFFICIAL! The new name for its campaign is #MAGAGA! Congratulations to whoever got there first, let’s take it all the way!! #MAGAGA.”
Midler has long been an outspoken liberal and critic of Trump, but even she found herself in hot water this summer over making what some perceived as anti-trans comments on Twitter in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. At the time, the controversy ignited a discussion around the importance of using inclusive language, and the Tony winner insisted there was “no intention of anything exclusionary or transphobic” in her sentiments.
Read Midler’s tweetstorm about Trump below.
That’s #Trumpto you. He’s giving the same speech he gave in 2016. After a two year pandemic, and a million American lives lost, the rest of us have moved on. He is ossified. May he rot.— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) November 16, 2022
IT’S OFFICIAL! The new name for its campaign is #MAGAGA! Congratulations to whoever got there first, let’s take it all the way!! #MAGAGA— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) November 16, 2022