President Donald Trump is “ballistic,” after Twitter finally removed his account on Friday, according to a Politico report.
The social media platform’s decision comes days before Trump leaves office and well after a good deal of damage that culminated in a deadly insurrection by his followers at the U.S. Capitol earlier this week had been done.
A senior administration official told Politico that the President was “scrambling to figure out what his options are” after learning that the social media platform which he has used as a megaphone for years — spewing falsehood and inciting his supporters to violence — had permanently suspended his account.
Twitter cited concerns that Trump might enflame further violence in the remaining 12 days before the end of his term as the reason for his removal from the platform.
One White House official told the publication that there were initial internal discussions between White House aides and Trump about possibly doing a “last farewell interview.” The official was uncertain, however, whether or not those plans would come to fruition.
In a statement issued by the White House late Friday, President Trump said he had “predicted” his expulsion from the platform and accused Twitter executives of coordinating with “Democrats and the Radical Left” to remove his account to silence him and the supporters who had voted for him in November.
“Twitter may be a private company, but without the government’s gift of Section 230 they would not exist for long,” he said.
In an effort to desperately hang onto the coattails of political relevance beyond his term, Trump added that he had been in negotiations with “various other sites” and would soon deliver what he called a “big announcement” as his team considers the possibilities of “building out our own platform in the near future.”
