'Next time I’m in the White House… no more dinners with Zuckerberg’: Trump blasts Facebook ban, drops MASSIVE 2024 run hint

 

Former US President Donald Trump has lashed out at Facebook for extending his suspension from the platform to two years. While criticizing the site’s “censoring”, Trump also strongly signaled a 2024 run for the White House.

Facebook announced on Friday that Trump will remain banned from the platform until early 2023, and will only be allowed back on if Facebook deems his presence doesn’t present “a serious risk to public safety,” as the company did after his supporters rioted on Capitol Hill in January.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this censoring and silencing, and ultimately, we will win,” Trump said in response. “Our country can’t take this abuse anymore!"

Trump also denounced Facebook’s move as an “insult” to the millions who voted for him in last year’s election. 

To the disappointment of many of his supporters, Trump failed to bring Big Tech to heel during his presidency. Even amid conservatives’ cries of censorship and discrimination, Trump stuck to complaining on Twitter, and only in the closing stages of his presidency did he fire off a largely toothless executive order aimed at repealing some legal protections for social media companies in the US.

However, with Trump reportedly considering another run for the White House in 2024, the former president suggested on Friday that should he win office again, the gloves will be off.

“Next time I’m in the White House there will be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife,” Trump said in a statement. “It will be all business.”

Zuckerberg took plenty of flack from Democrats and liberals for dining at the White House with Trump in 2019. However, some conservatives online reckon the Facebook CEO got the last laugh, and managed to flatter Trump’s attention off his platform until it was too late.

Since his departure from Washington and exile from social media, Trump has hinted several times at wanting another shot at the presidency, and his candidacy is a given in some Republican circles. Reps. Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan told Fox News’ Sean Hannity late last month that they both expect Trump to run, and among Republican voters, multiple polls have shown that Trump is far and above the favorite candidate.

However, Trump is not the only potential 2024 candidate with the Silicon Valley tech giants in his sights. While he has given no indication that he will run, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has come in second behind Trump in some polls, earning points from Republicans for his handling of the coronavirus crisis, his willingness to trade blows with the media, and crucially, his adversarial stance against Big Tech.