Former U.S. President Donald Trump killed two birds with one stone this week when he reacted to the news that Facebook decided to extend a ban on his accounts for the next two years. Condemning their decision to reinstate his account so he could speak directly to his 35 million followers, Trump lashed out and warned Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg that he would never entertain requests for meetings with him again.
"Facebook's ruling is an insult to the record-setting 75M people, plus many others, who voted for us in the 2020 Rigged Presidential Election," Trump wrote on Saturday on Telegram, which he uses prior to the launch and the recent permanent shut down of his microblog, From the Desk of Donald J. Trump. "They shouldn't be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing, and ultimately, we will win. Our Country can't take this abuse anymore!"
According to The Blaze, Facebook Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg spoke out on their decision to extend Trump's ban, saying that their decision will be "controversial" no matter what the outcome, especially when many people believe "it was not appropriate for a private company like Facebook to suspend an outgoing president from its platform."
Trump issued a stern warning to Zuckerberg, writing on Saturday, "Next time I'm in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It will be all business!"
According to Reuters, Facebook decided to extend Trump's ban until January 2023. The company banned him following the attacks on Capitol Hill on January 6, accusing Trump of urging his followers to descend on the Capitol and violently protest the rigged elections. The suspension will last for another two years since its initial block and will only be lifted once the "risk to public safety" is no longer there. Trump had also been permanently banned by Twitter and suspended by Google's YouTube following the attacks.
The former Republican president then established From the Desk of Donald J. Trump, a microblog that this week was permanently shut down less than a month after its launch. Trump's senior aide Jason Miller told CNBC that the microblog "will not be returning."
"It was just auxiliary to the broader efforts we have and are working on," Miller told the media outlet. He also responded to a question posed on Twitter asking if the shutdown was a "precursor to [Trump] joining another social media platform," to which Miller said, "Yes, actually, it is. Stay tuned!"
Meanwhile, Trump is positioning himself to take back the White House after he was cheated on in the 2020 Presidential Elections. Forbes reported that he recorded a GOP fundraising video in which Republicans ralled to "take back Congress and the White House 'sooner than you think,'" which may mean sooner than the 2024 Presidential Elections.
"We're going to take back the Senate, take back the House, we're going to take back the White House - and sooner than you think," Trump declared in the video. "It's going to be really something special."
But aside from a 2024 presidency, Trump is also open to the possibility of taking a seat in the Congress, saying on Friday that it is an "interesting" possibility during a conversation with right-wing commentator Wayne Allyn Root. Trump's next destination in his early campaign trail is the North Carolina GOP convention, which will be held on Saturday evening.
