Trump says his statements are 'getting picked up by almost everyone'
Who needs Twitter when there’s email?
Former President Donald Trump Monday claimed he has more power to reach Americans even after being cut off from millions of followers on Twitter and other social media sites.
“When I put out a statement, it’s much more elegant than a tweet,” Trump said on a podcast with right-wing host Lisa Boothe. “They’re getting picked up by almost everyone. ... In a certain way, it’s bigger than ever.”
Trump, who was permanently barred from Twitter for inciting his followers to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, now issues statements via his political action committee and his Florida-based political operation.
He said his statements reach an even bigger audience because his press statements, many of which mimic the style of his tweets, are then widely shared by his supporters.
Trump teased plans to launch a new social media platform of his own but gave no details.
Two months after leaving the White House, Trump repeated widely debunked lies about his presidential election defeat.
“We won and they took it away,” said Trump, again without offering any evidence. “It was a rigged election.”
The former president lashed out at a familiar cast of real and supposed enemies, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
He called McConnell a weak leader who would fail to block Democrats from enacting far-reaching voting rights reform.
“Mitch doesn’t want to fight. He’s hanging by a thread,” Trump said.
The ex-president predicted Democrats would succeed in abolishing the filibuster and would enact a wide-ranging liberal agenda including reforming the Supreme Court.
“If they knock out the filibuster it would be catastrophic for the Republican Party,” he said. “They cannot allow this to happen.”
He slammed other Republican critics like Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska as turncoats for voting to convict him at the second impeachment trial.
Trump also derided moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who he predicted would eventually go along with his party's leaders and back their push to eliminate the filibuster.
He raised eyebrows by praising one Democrat, apparently referring to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, another moderate opponent of changing the filibuster, as a “very decent senator from Arizona.”
