As former President Donald Trump makes plans to run for president a third time, his lawyers are taking steps to sue social media sites that have banned him over his incendiary speech.
According to three sources that spoke to The Washington Post, Trump reportedly wanted to announce a 2024 presidential run during the upheaval in Afghanistan, following the withdrawal of the United States military there in August. His aides talked him out of doing so, saying that he should be patient with a presidential announcement, as entering the race now would trigger several federal election rules — including limiting his ability to raise funds and providing equal time standards on broadcast television to his likely opponent, incumbent President Joe Biden.
Advisers were also apprehensive about Trump announcing a run ahead of the 2022 midterm races, believing that Democrats could try to tie Republican candidates to the former president, making the race a referendum on their ties to him rather than other issues. If Republicans failed to win either house of Congress, it would also reflect poorly on Trump, his advisers warned.
“The biggest point we drove home was that he doesn’t want to own the midterms if we don’t win back the House or Senate,” one of the sources told The Washington Post.
According to recent polling from Quinnipiac University, most Americans are already opposed to a Trump presidential run in 2024.
Trump’s aides added that offering his support to other Republicans during the midterms would be more beneficial if he wasn’t yet declared a candidate.
Whether Trump announces a run now or after November of next year, self-promotion will prove a challenge, given that he’s still banned on several social media sites. On Friday, Trump’s lawyers sought to have his access to the site restored by filing a lawsuit against Twitter.
The lawsuit claims that his First Amendment speech rights are being violated because of the ban, which was imposed on the former president after a mob of his loyalists attacked the Capitol on January 6. The attacks immediately followed an incendiary speech Trump gave that day against the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Twitter justified the ban by saying they were concerned his tweets — which contained numerous false allegations of fraud in the 2020 race — would incite additional acts of violence from his followers.
Trump’s lawsuit contends that Twitter is being “coerced by members of the United States Congress” and “acting directly with federal officials” to continue the indefinite ban on the former president. It also claims that Twitter is “operating under an unconstitutional immunity” to keep him off the platform.
It’s unclear how Trump’s First Amendment rights are being violated, however. That provision within the Constitution stipulates that no law shall be established by the government that restricts speech — but Twitter, being a private company, is allowed to create rules that users must abide by, and to enforce those rules by banning users that violate them.
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig was brief in his assessment of Trump’s lawsuit against Twitter.
“This won’t work,” Honig tweeted, adding no additional commentary to the issue.
Harvard Law school professor Laurence Tribe, a frequent critic of the former president, was more direct in his opinion on the lawsuit’s chances.
“Trump’s lawsuit to force Twitter to let him back on its platform is garbage. Pure BS,” Tribe said. “A pile of crap. Frivolous. An abuse of the judicial system. Zero merit. Got it?”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy