US
Donald Trump plotting first tweet since ban was lifted – and he wants to return to Facebook, too
Donald Trump might start tweeting again soon, a confidante of the former president has revealed.
Advisers for his 2024 presidential campaign have been workshopping ideas for what his first post should be, according to NBC News.
Trump had been banned from Twitter in the aftermath of the Capitol riots – but was allowed back on the platform following Elon Musk’s takeover.
Tear gas is released into a crowd of rioters during the storming of the Capitol in January 2021
A Republican, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations with Mr Trump about returning to the platform, said: “Trump is probably coming back to Twitter. It’s just a question of how and when.
“He’s been talking about it for weeks, but Trump speaks for Trump, so it’s anyone’s guess what he’ll do or say or when.”
The former president has also told Fox News that he is in talks with Meta about a possible return to Facebook and Instagram.
He said: “We are talking to them, and we’ll see how it all works out.
“If they took us back, it would help them greatly, and that’s okay with me. But they need us more than we need them.”
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Trump ‘unfit for any office’
Facebook said Trump’s ban would be reviewed after two years when it was imposed in January 2021 – with that review date coming on 7 January 2023.
The social media giant said at the time the ban was imposed that Trump would only be allowed back on the platform if the “risk to public safety” had receded.
“We believe that the ban on President Trump’s account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse,” Mr Trump’s campaign wrote in a letter to Meta on Tuesday, according to a copy reviewed by NBC News.
Trump’s campaign didn’t threaten a lawsuit, as some sources close to him thought he would.
It instead talked about the importance of free speech and petitioned Meta for a “meeting to discuss President Trump’s prompt reinstatement to the platform”.
A Meta spokesperson declined to comment about Mr Trump beyond saying the company “will announce a decision in the coming weeks in line with the process we laid out”.
A Trump adviser who spoke to NBC News said his campaign believes Facebook will reinstate him.
House Democrats, including Adam Schiff of California, told Facebook last month to keep Trump off the platform.
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What are Trump’s chances?
Trump’s plans to expand his social media footprint also speak to low reach of Truth Social – the platform he created to reach supporters.
The former US president has slightly more than 4.8 million followers on the platform, compared to nearly 88 million on Twitter and 34 million on Facebook.
Facebook was crucial to Trump’s success in 2016, when his campaign used computer programming to tailor ads to viewers’ data – called microtargeting – which helped him raise money with small-dollar donors and outmessage Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
An internal Facebook report found that Trump ran 5.9 million different versions of ads, compared to 66,000 for Clinton, according to Bloomberg News.