He has lost the elections and now Donald Trump has lost one of his favorite modes of communication. Twitter has permanently suspended his account “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill earlier this week.
On Thursday, Twitter suspended Trump’s account for 12 hours after he put up a video reiterating his earlier unsubstantiated claims of voting fraud and praised his supporters who laid siege to the Capitol. A day later, came this tweet: “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
Soon after, the President posted: “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
Explaining its decision to block Trump, Twitter said the above two tweets violated its glorification of violence policy and were ‘highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol’.
Meanwhile, President-elect Joe Biden has called Trump’s decision not to attend his inauguration a “good thing”. It’s “one of the few things he and I have ever agreed on,” he went on to add. “He exceeded even my worst notions about him. He’s been an embarrassment to the country.” But the Vice-President is welcome, Biden rubbed it in. The last time an outgoing American President did not attend the swearing-in of his successor was over 150 years ago.
Asked what he felt about growing calls for Trump’s impeachment, Biden refused to take a line. “We’re going to do our job and Congress can decide how to proceed,” he said.
