Trump’s Blog Has Shutdown After Just 1 Month

A “communications platform” former President Donald Trump launched in early May as a means to reach his followers is shutting down after usage tanked.

Trump senior aide Jason Miller justified the site’s forced retirement to CNBC on Wednesday, saying it was “auxiliary to the broader efforts we have and are working on.”

Miller declined to elaborate on those efforts, but did confirm the website “will not be returning.”

The webpage, “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,” was hawked as a replacement for Trump’s posts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms after they banned him following his baseless claims of election fraud, which incited the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

But its actual utility came into question soon after its May 5 launch. Social media interactions plummeted from 159,000 its first day to just 15,000 three days later, a Washington Post analysis found.

Internet denizens were also quick to note that it was less of a platform and more of a blog, albeit one that encouraged visitors to share Trump’s long-winded posts on their own social media accounts.

The shutdown may be a boon to MyPillow CEO and stalwart Trump ally Mike Lindell, who launched his own social media website in April. Lindell said at the time that his platform is all about free speech – unless you want to swear or use God’s name in vain, which will get you banned.

“Another thing you can’t do in there is totally defame someone,” said Lindell, who is being sued for libel by Dominion Voting Systems to the tune of $1.3 billion.

“From the Desk of Donald J. Trump” was preceded in death by Trump Airlines, Trump beverages, Trump: The Game, numerous Trump casinos, Trump magazine, Trump Mortgage, Trump Steaks, a Trump travel website, Trump telecom, Trump University, and Trump Vodka.

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Trump Foiled In Attempt To Slip Back On To Twitter

Former US president Donald Trump’s most recent attempt to get a platform has been thwarted.

On the heels of the launch of his new webpage, “From the Desk of Donald J Trump”, on Wednesday, his team created the handle @DJTDesk on Twitter.

By Wednesday night, the account had been suspended.

“As stated in our ban evasion policy, we’ll take enforcement action on accounts whose apparent intent is to replace or promote content affiliated with a suspended account,” a spokesperson for Twitter said in a statement.

Trump’s “From the Desk” page is essentially a blog with a timeline format that resembles both Twitter and Facebook’s platforms. In the site’s brief life thus far, Trump has made a series of scattered, combative posts attacking Republicans including Liz Cheney and Mitch McConnell. He also lambasted Twitter, Facebook and Google by name.

“What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country,” Trump wrote in a post on Wednesday. “Free Speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth, but the truth will come out anyway, bigger and stronger than ever before. The People of our Country will not stand for it! These corrupt social media companies must pay a political price, and must never again be allowed to destroy and decimate our Electoral Process.”

Both Facebook and Twitter banned Trump from their platforms in the wake of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, which left several people dead.

Twitter penned a blog post about its permanent suspension of Trump, saying it did so “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

“In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action,” the company wrote. “Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerbergslammed the insurrection as a demonstration by Trump to “use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden”.

“We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post at the time. “Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”

As Facebook’s ban was “indefinite” and not permanent, Facebook’s quasi-independent advisory board said this week that it would be giving the company a six-month window to further review Trump’s suspension, and to “determine and justify a proportionate response that is consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform”.

HuffPost has reached out to Twitter for further comment.

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Donald Trump’s Adult Children Are Still Costing Taxpayers Thousands Of Dollars A Day

Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump – three of ex-US president Donald Trump’s adult children – continue to land taxpayers with the cost of their Secret Service protection.

They racked up more than $140,000 in charges in the first month following new president Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, according to watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which analysed Secret Service spending records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Agents protecting Trump’s progeny spent $52,296.75 on travel and $88,678.39 on hotel costs during the 30-day period, including on trips to Salt Lake City, Miami and New York, the group said Wednesday.

It works out to around $4,699 per day.

And the total costs to taxpayers could be even higher, because the Secret Service “did not provide records of spending at Trump businesses, which is the most controversial aspect of the extended protection”, CREW added.

That the Trump offspring can benefit from publicly-funded security details at all is down to their father’s six-month extension of their protection following his departure from the White House.

Only the ex-president, former first lady Melania Trump and their son Barron, 15, are entitled to automatic protection.

Trump, however, extended the perk to his aforementioned kids (plus youngest daughter Tiffany Trump) and their partners in the final days of his administration.

“While it may be tempting to put the story of the Trump family’s profiteering in the past, we cannot until they have actually stopped directing taxpayer money into their own bank accounts,” said the group, which has long exposed instances of taxpayer money being funneled to Trump properties. “Thanks to Trump’s unusual extension of their protection, they’ve got a few more months to continue the grift.”

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Donald Trump Finds It ‘Kind Of Freeing’ Being Off Twitter, His Former Press Secretary Claims

Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claims ex-president Donald Trump is now actually “doing just fine” without social media.

Trump railed against and desperately tried to circumvent his bans from multiple social media platforms — which for years he used to spread conspiracy theories, amplify lies, sow division and attack enemies ― after he was booted for inciting the deadly US Capitol riot on January 6.

But McEnany, a newly-minted contributor for Fox News, on Friday told Fox Business’ Stuart Varney that Trump now finds it “kind of freeing.”

“He said it was kind of freeing not to have Twitter. He had a lot of time on his hands. So I think he’s doing just fine without social media,” she said.

Social media users were skeptical about McEnany’s claim, given her history of lying on behalf of Trump and the ex-president’s well-documented love for Twitter in particular.

Twitter permanently banned Trump from his favourite platform in the wake of the insurrection. Facebook’s oversight board is due soon to rule on the possible reinstatement of Trump’s account. YouTube said Thursday it will lift Trump’s suspension once the risk of offline violence has diminished.

McEnany, in an apparent contradiction to her earlier comments, then pivoted to the right-wing talking point of so-called “cancel culture.”

“What a travesty, this cancel culture, this root someone out of the public square,” she told Varney, saying the bans weren’t about stopping violence but “about stopping Trump.”

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Trump Returns To Political Stage And Hints At 2024 Presidential Run

NEWS & POLITICS

Former President Donald Trump took to the stage on February 28, for the first time since leaving office, with a typically fiery speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Trump called for Republican Party unity as he continued to stoke divisions across America with misinformation about the 2020 election.

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It’s Been One Year Since Trump Boasted 15 Covid Cases Would Soon Be ‘Close To Zero’

Drew Angerer via Getty Images

More than 500,000 people have now died of Covid-19 in the US alone. It’s Been 1 Year Since Trump Boasted 15 COVID-19 Cases Would Soon Be ‘Close To Zero’

The US hit a tragic anniversary Friday, exactly 12 months after then-president Donald Trump gloated that the nation was doing a “pretty good job” against the spread of Covid-19 and that the 15 reported cases would quickly be “down to close to zero.”

He declared the following day that “like a miracle, it will disappear.”

The US Covid-19 death toll has now surpassed 510,000, with cases in the country topping 28 million.

The New York Daily News used Trump’s quote on the front page when the US passed a half million Covid-19 deaths on Monday. “So Far From Zero” the headline said.

The day before Trump’s 2020 prediction, Dr Nancy Messonnier, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Centre for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases, warned: “We expect we will see community spread in this country. It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness.”

Trump threatened to fire Messonnier after her warning, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Yet Trump admitted to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward weeks before he claimed Covid-19 would vanish that he knew it was far more dangerous than he had let on.

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump said in a February 7 call with Woodward, who reported the conversation in his book “Rage.” “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your … strenuous flus …. This is deadly stuff.′ 

He told Woodward in March: “I wanted to always play it down.”

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Trump’s Impeachment Defence Team Won’t Say When He Knew About Capitol Attack

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Piers Morgan Shuts Down Sarah Palin During Heated Row About Donald Trump

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£2 Million In Trump Reelection Donations Went To The Trump Organisation: Report

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Donald Trump Brags About Home Alone 2 Role In Blustering Resignation Letter To Acting Union

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