Trump plans ‘tectonic plate shift’ return to social media despite being blocked by almost every site

How he plans to actually get back online while remaining by banned by virtually every major platform is unknown

An adviser to former President Donald Trump has hinted at his return to social media in a new podcast, describing the alleged comeback in the most Trumpian of ways, saying: “It will be a tectonic plate shift in the world of social media, because anything that he touches is going to be big.”

But the former president still faces continued bans on the most prominent social media platforms in the world, from Twitter to Facebook, with no major tech executives announcing plans to lift their blocks on Mr Trump after he promoted flagrant falsities of a rigged election during the Capitol insurrection, and amid warnings of continued threats to national security. 

Still, Jason Miller, described as a top adviser to the former president, said on Mediaite’s “The Interview” podcast: “We’re not that far off from seeing President Trump return to social media.”

“I think it will be on some new platforms that maybe you haven’t seen before,” he added, alluding to recent reports that Gab and other new social media platforms popular among the far-right have called on Mr Trump to join their sites. “I think there’s going to be some excitement on that front.”

Mr Miller acknowledged Mr Trump does not have an invitation to return to the platforms where he spent years promoting falsities about the 2020 election before Americans could event begin voting, and then lied about the outcome after he lost to President Joe Biden. As calls grew for him to release a statement on social media calling for calm during the Capitol riots on January 6, Mr Trump posted a video that continued to spread falsities about the vote. 

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The adviser said Mr Trump “would never shut the door completely on anything” while suggesting the former president might be open to returning to those platforms, though it was unlikely those companies would reverse their policies in his favor. 

“I’m sure Jack [Dorsey] will probably shut the door completely to a Twitter return and [Mark] Zuckerberg,” Mr Miller said, referring to the founders of Twitter and Facebook, respectively. “We’ll see what happens in April with this advisory board review from Facebook.”

Discussions surrounding Mr Trump’s return to social media have featured “both existing social media platforms and also potentially with some brand new platforms,” according to Mr Miller, who noted how some members of the team have been pleased with the response of the former president’s more infrequent messaging.

“One of the things we were discussing the other day is he’s actually had a lot more pickup from his once every couple of day-press releases that he’s put out than he did over a lot of his tweets by the end of the administration,” he said. 

The former president has largely stayed much further out of the national spotlight than he did in the final days of his tenure in the Oval Office, avoiding many television interviews and only recently having delivered his first major post-presidency speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. He has released several statements through a new office in Florida, where most of his family moved from Washington after Mr Biden’s inauguration. Mr Trump has teased a potential third bid for the White House in 2024.