President Donald Trump ― or whoever has access to his Twitter account ― apparently spent part of Tuesday evening unblocking users.
Since taking office, Trump has blocked a number of people for criticizing him or even just cracking jokes at his expense, including celebrities such as model Chrissy Teigen and author Stephen King.
However, in May, a federal judge said Trump’s blocks were unconstitutional as his Twitter feed was a public forum which “has been used in the course of the appointment of officers (including cabinet secretaries), the removal of officers and the conduct of foreign policy.”
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald advised Trump to use Twitter’s “mute” function instead and asked the president and White House social media director Dan Scavino to unblock the users. So Trump unblocked the seven plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed by the Knight First Amendment Institute, but not the others he had previously blocked.
Although the Justice Department announced in June that it would appeal, earlier this month, Knight asked the White House to unblock an additional 41 accounts. On Tuesday night, that happened ― at least for some of them.
Knight is now asking others who have been Trump-blocked to get in touch.
Comedy writer Bess Kalb took a moment to savor the victory:
Then, newly unblocked by Trump, she turned around and blocked him instead:
Jules Suzdaltsev was blocked in May 2017 after urging Trump to spend more time with his son. Like Kalb, Suzdaltsev first basked in the moment:
Then, he hit Trump with a block of his own:
A few others also celebrated:
Not everyone has been unblocked. It appears the action was limited to just some of the people on the Knight list. Others reported that they remain blocked, including longtime Trump nemesis Rosie O’Donnell.
It’s not clear if Teigen and King were among the unblocked. Last year, Teigen said she was blocked after writing “lol no one likes you.” King described the moment he was blocked to “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert earlier this year.
“I might’ve said he had his head somewhere where a certain yoga position would be necessary to get it there,” King said. “And that was it, man.”