Former US President Donald Trump told conservative network Newsmax on Monday that he didn’t mind his permanent ban from Twitter ― and that the press releases he has sent out since are “more elegant” anyway.
“Frankly, they’re more elegant than tweeting, as the expression goes,” Trump said to host Greg Kelly. “They’re really much more elegant. And the word is getting out. ... It’s probably a better form, and everyone’s waiting for it. For me it works, for other people it wouldn’t work because a press release doesn’t mean that much, but when I put out a press release, you see what happens. Everyone’s waiting.”
Trump added that “tweeting gets you in trouble” and specifically pointed to retweets.
“You’re retweeting people, and you find out that the retweets were not so good, because the person ... that you’re retweeting is not the best,” he said. “It gets you in a little difficulty every once in a while. I like this better than Twitter. Actually, they did us a favour.”
Over the course of his time on Twitter, Trump garnered regular critique for retweeting a variety of questionable message ― including false information about Covid-19 treatments, calls to fire Dr Anthony Fauci, and bizarre posts that veered into meme territory, including one that read “Saw Not Fat trending and totally thought it was something Trump said.”
Since his forced retirement from Twitter and other mainstream social media platforms like Facebook, the 45th president has taken to issuing his pithy remarks via press releases, following a brief unsuccessful attempt at tweeting through other presidential accounts, including those of his political allies.
The former president stressed to Kelly that he had “tremendous options” regarding opening his own social media platform. Jason Miller, a senior adviser for Trump’s 2020 campaign, has also hinted at that possibility.
In a Monday interview, Miller told Fox News that any social platform operated and sponsored by Trump would “completely redefine the game.”