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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Trump Permanently Banned From Twitter

The website that the 45th President of the United States uses incessantly has finally suspended him over concerns he would use the platform to incite violence.

(CN) — President Donald Trump has been suspended permanently from Twitter, two days after delivering a speech contesting 2020 election results that whipped some of his supporters into a violent frenzy that ended in five deaths and an attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump was already temporarily suspended from Twitter — as well as Facebook and YouTube — on Wednesday for just 12 hours after he posted a trio of inflammatory tweets, two of which falsely suggested that he won the 2020 election.

After those were flagged for containing false information, he posted a video addressing the mob, at times affectionately, that stormed the U.S. Capitol.

In the video, Trump remarked, “We love you!” to supporters gathered in Washington while telling them simultaneously to go home. The message only came, however, hours after the day’s carnage was made plain.

In the same video later removed, he continued to espouse disinformation about the results of the 2020 election, including that it was stolen from him, the very reason — albeit a false one — masses showed out in force.

But now, what once was temporary is permanent.

Twitter’s decision to boot Trump occurs just as members of Congress, mostly Democrats, have ratcheted up calls to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him for unfitness or impeach him because of the insurrectionist attack they argue he spurred.

But by Friday morning, Trump was already back to antics now ubiquitous with his use of the social media platform.

In his first tweet Friday, Trump wrote: “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

And in the next, he wrote: “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

The refusal to attend is not totally unique to Trump but it does come as his offer to transition presidential power peacefully to President-elect Joe Biden is still nascent.

“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement and violence,” Twitter said in a statement Friday.

The company “made it clear” earlier this week, they added, that further violations by the president of the company’s violent threats policy could lead to his removal from the site.

Biden beat Trump in the popular election this past November with more than 81 million votes, a more than seven million vote margin to Trump’s and beat him soundly in the Electoral College, 306-232. The minimum votes needed to secure the Electoral College and be declared president is 270.

It has been over 65 days since the 2020 election and Trump, only after the unprecedented chaos unfolded in the Capitol and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer aired public warnings that charges of sedition or treason could rear their heads, did Trump offer something that sounded like a concession to reality.

“The Congress has certified the results, a new administration will be inaugurated on Jan. 20,” Trump said.

The House and Senate were in the middle of counting votes and hearing objections from Republican lawmakers when hordes of Trump’s supporters and others swarmed the Capitol building and eventually breached it, forcing legislators and reporters to scramble before eventually being removed to a secure secondary location.

Categories / Government, Politics

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