“Look, we’re very supportive of what Elon is saying,” Nunes said. “The question is, will he accomplish what he’s saying, dealing with all the employees, dealing with all the algorithms. But the goal has been for us, for President Trump, is to give the American people their voice back, and open the internet back up, and that’s what we’re trying to create.
“I would just add, though, I think there’s an important point that’s lost on people: Truth Social is wide open right now in the Apple app store, and you don’t have to ask anyone’s opinion. There’s no big tech tyrant that can cancel you, you don’t have to go to a billionaire to ask permission. You’re let on: Democrat, Republican, whoever you are. And we’re not going to censor you for political speech, so we are accomplishing what the mission of our company is, which is to get this internet open back up, and we’re glad that Elon is saying the right things. Let’s see if he backs that up.”
Trump only recently started posting on Truth Social. The Daily Beast reported in April that Trump is “furious” about Truth Social’s troubled launch and “appears disengaged from trying to turn the platform around, much less post on it.”
MacCallum was apparently similarly skeptical of claims that Trump will stick to Truth Social, where his posts receive considerably fewer eyeballs than his tweets used to get.
“He always said that Twitter was the best way to get his message out,” MacCallum said of Trump. “He reached millions of people in an unfiltered way, he didn’t feel like he misrepresented by someone who was interpreting what he had to say. How many millions of people is he currently reaching on [Truth] Social?”
“Well, he’s got what, I think almost 2.7 million followers already and we’re only at two weeks old,” Nunes replied (Trump had almost 90 million followers on Twitter at the time of his ban). “And remember what we’re trying to do: Twitter is an old platform. It’s a PR wire for elitists, for blue checkers, for journalists, for fake news, for Hollywood celebrities. What we’re doing over at Truth Social is we ‘re trying to make social media fun again.
“And the advantage that we have is we have millions of Americans who have been banned or censored on the other platforms. So, for example, how are we a fun place? We have these awesome meme makers that make the coolest cartoons you’ve ever seen, and they’ve been banned from all the other platforms. So we’re a home for them, and they know they can come and establish a home base where we’re not cancellable by these other big companies because we built this block by block.”
If Trump ever tires of Truth Social’s awesome meme makers and returns to Twitter, here’s to hoping his tweets are of the celebrity commentary variety (or even the trolling political opponents variety) as opposed to the election conspiracy theory variety.
Nunes, for whatever it’s worth, is emphatic Trump won’t tweet again. Nunes said his goal is to turn Social Truth into a platform reaching “tens of millions of Americans, ultimately” that is “a fun, safe place to be.”