Trump launches blog to spread election lies
Former President Donald Trump, whose accounts were suspended by Twitter and Facebook over his repeated, baseless assertions that the 2020 election was "stolen," launched a blog on Tuesday to continue spreading that bogus claim.
Titled "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump," the new, bare bones website consists of a series of statements from the former president that replicate the style of his prior posts on Twitter, settling political scores, repeating disproven allegations of fraudto explain his defeat to President Joe Biden, and capitalizing words at will.
"The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!" Trump wrote on May 3.
Recounts in battleground states found no widespread voting irregularities that could have overturned the results of the election.
Trump has relished going after Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who both voted to impeach Trump on the charge of "incitement of insurrection" for his alleged role in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Calling Romney "a stone cold loser" and Cheney "a warmongering fool," Trump is using his new platform to try to maintain his control of the Republican Party. He also endorsedRep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., as Cheney's replacement as GOP Conference Chair.
In a Wednesday op-ed published by the Washington Post, Cheney said her party was at a "turning point," and must choose between acknowledging the truth— that the election was not rigged — and fealty to Trump.
“Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this,” Cheney wrote.
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal noted that the statement posted to Trump's new blog seemed to have a singular purpose.
"The election wasn't stolen, yet Mr. Trump wants an endorsement of his stolen claim to be a litmus test for every Republican candidate. He’s the one who wants to refight his losing campaign," the editors wrote Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Facebook's oversight board upheld the company's decision to suspend Trump's account on the platform, but asked the company to review the decision in six months.
Noting that each post to Trump's new blog allowed readers to share them directly on Twitter and Facebook via separate accounts on each platform, Twitter moved Monday to prevent that from happening.
Twitter suspends @DJTDesk — Trump’s latest attempt to circumvent ban: “We’ll take enforcement action on accounts whose apparent intent is to replace or promote content affiliated with a suspended account.”
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) May 6, 2021
Trump, meanwhile, continued to go after the platforms whose decisions to suspend his accounts have limited his ability to communicate directly with his followers.
"What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country," the former president wrote. "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 National Republican Senatorial Committee heralded Trump's new website as a turning point of its own.
"Big Tech wasn’t able to SILENCE President Donald J. Trump!" the NRSC wrote in a fundraising email on Thursday. "Thanks to OVERWHELMING SUPPORT from millions of MAGA supporters, Trump has launched his very own social media platform!"
Yet the NRSC email contained no links to "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump." Instead, a red tab that reads "WILL YOU JOIN TRUMP'S SOCIAL MEDIA" directs readers to an NRSC fundraising page powered by the Republican fundraising platform WinRed.
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