Donald Trump

Elon Musk reinstated former President Donald Trump’s account on Twitter Saturday, reversing a ban that had kept Trump off the social media site for more than 22 months — since a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was poised to certify President Biden’s election victory. Musk made the announcement after holding a poll that asked Twitter users to click “yes” or “no” on whether Trump’s account should be reinstated. The “yes” vote won, with 51.8%.

For a second consecutive day, the recriminations about Republicans’ unexpectedly weak Election Day performance played a prominent role on the pages and over the airwaves of Rupert Murdoch’s media properties.

The right-wing social network faces two federal investigations and an uncertain financial future. But it has still managed to outpace its rivals. Truth Social had 1.7 million unique visitors in September, according to Similar Web, which monitors web traffic.

Former President Donald Trump threatened journalists with prison rape Saturday, suggesting the federal government use violence as a way to combat leaks to the media from journalists.

“You take the writer and/or the publisher of the paper … and you say ‘Who is the leaker? National security,’” Trump explained to audiences during a rally in Robstown, Texas. “And they say ‘We’re not gonna tell you.’ They say ‘That’s OK, you’re going to jail.’ And when this person realizes he’s going to be the bride of another prisoner very shortly, he will say ‘I’d very much like to tell you exactly who that leaker is!’”

Will Wilkerson, one of Trump Media & Technology Group’s first employees, alleges the company violated securities laws and that Trump pressured executives to hand over their shares to his wife. He shared a cache of internal documents with the Washington Post and federal investigators that he says support his claims.

Donald Trump says he plans to file lawsuits against “a large number” of news outlets, just as he has against CNN. In an email to supporters, the former president said those other news outlets — he did not identify them — were guilty of “lies, defamation, and wrongdoing,” including as it pertains to “The Big Lie.”

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., focuses primarily on the term “The Big Lie” about Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud that he says cost him the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.

For most of his life, Donald Trump has wielded an immense superpower: the ability to bend and twist reality to meet his needs of the moment. But now it seems he’s losing that magic touch, especially with a group of allies that has been with him since the very beginning — the media.

The twice-impeached former president Donald Trump may be banned from using most mainstream social media, but some kindred spirits have found a home on his own “Truth Social” platform: QAnon conspiracy promoters who have also been banned by mainstream social media.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart said that under the law, it is the government’s burden to show why a redacted version should not be released and prosecutors’ arguments Thursday failed to persuade him. He gave them a week to submit a copy of the affidavit proposing the information it wants to keep secret after the FBI seized classified and top secret information during a search at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last week.

Even if the former president declares he’s a candidate again, the platform says it won’t speed up a decision on whether to reinstate his account.

Trump’s 2020 ‘town hall’ was held inside the memorial, an area where events have long been barred by federal regulations.

Reporters who cover sensitive beats sometimes have a sense when big news is about to break. But not this time. The FBI’s Monday morning search of Mar-a-Lago — a thunderclap in American political history — happened so quietly, so secretly, that it wasn’t caught on camera at all. For the most part reporters didn’t catch wind of the FBI action until after it was over.

Former President Donald Trump, whose allegations, without evidence, that the 2020 election was rigged helped fuel the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, has signaled he plans to sue CNN for its “fake news.” But given that the news came in the form of one of innumerable fundraising emails from the President and his as-of-yet non-campaign, it could be yet another effort to raise money for a possible 2024 run. “I have notified CNN of my intent to file a lawsuit.” Trump said, citing its “repeated defamatory statements against me.”

The former president hasn’t been interviewed on the Rupert Murdoch-owned cable network in more than 100 days, and other Republicans often get the attention he once did.

Former President Trump while in office could usually turn to Fox News for comfort.  There were differences from time to time, and Trump made headlines occasionally by going after personalities on Fox — most famously Megyn Kelly during a 2015 GOP presidential primary debate. Trump still has his supporters on the network, but the dynamic between a former president openly flirting with another run for the White House and Rupert Murdoch’s top media asset is definitely changing.

Facing a potential Department of Justice probe over the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and more legal quicksand, Donald Trump has gone on the offensive against old foe CNN with a threatened defamation suit. “This letter serves as formal notice of the false statements about President Donald J. Trump in numerous articles and televised transmissions published by Cable News Network including, but not limited to, those discussed below,” reads a July 21 missive that the former POTUS’ DC attorneys at Ifrah Law, PLLC sent to CNN boss Chris Licht and EVP and General Counsel David Vigilante.

Reflections from the Emmy-winning television producer and a co-founder of the advocacy organization People for the American Way.

Former President Trump and his son were among six board members removed from the board of Trump’s social media company weeks before it was hit with federal subpoenas, according to state records. Florida state business records showed Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and the four others were removed as board members of the Trump Media and Technology Group on June 8, based on a filing with the state’s Division of Corporations. Roughly three weeks later, the Securities and Exchange Commission and a grand jury in Manhattan subpoenaed the company.

A draft document contains the names of dozens of hedge funds and others behind the $1 billion private investment announced in December.

Having stumbled with his social network, Donald Trump now has aspirations to create a right-wing rival to Netflix. Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) has posted ads on job sites seeking to hire a content development manager and content acquisition professional for TMTG+, a streaming service that will “provide big-tent entertainment, exciting documentaries, sports programming, and more,” according to the company — which claims that “the American public is seeking ‘non-woke’ entertainment, and TMTG+ will provide content for all to enjoy.”

Musk, speaking virtually at a Future of the Car summit hosted by the Financial Times, said Twitter’s Trump ban was a “morally bad decision” and “foolish in the extreme.” He said permanent bans of Twitter accounts should be rare and reserved for accounts that are scams or automated bots.

The former president’s Truth Social app was offered for download beginning Monday from the Apple App Store to a limited number of subscribers who had preordered. Others who were added to a waiting list are to be given access over the next 10 days. The site encountered technical glitches shortly after launch, with reports that subscribers were shut out for hours. Others had trouble signing on. The site is not expected to be open to anyone who wants to download it until next month.

Truth Social, the former president’s hard-right alternative to Twitter, could open its doors next month. But as businesses go, outrage may not be the best moneymaker.

Roger Ailes understood the appeal Donald Trump had for Fox viewers. He didn’t foresee how together they would redefine the limits of political discourse. Above, Chris Wallace interviewed President-elect Trump for Fox News in December 2016.

Many questions still swirl around Wednesday’s startling announcement that, after nine years, Jeff Zucker’s reign as CNN president was over. It will all eventually be revealed — teams of reporters are racing to dig into one of the biggest media stories in recent memory. But we already know one thing: When the dust settles, Zucker’s relationship with Donald Trump will define his legacy.

Conservative rivals Newsmax and One America News are reaping viewership benefits by filling the void left by Fox.

Former president Donald Trump, who has been using his ongoing national circuit of campaign-style rallies to urge the boycott of DirecTV and parent company AT&T for removing conservative channel One America News (OAN), has expanded his wrath to Comcast. Speaking Saturday at the fairgrounds in the East Texas flatland town of Conroe, Trump described both publicly traded telecommunications giants as “left-wing lunatics who are destroying our nation.”

From the start of his presidential bid, Donald Trump took full advantage of the public’s growing mistrust of the mainstream press. The journalists tirelessly chronicling the near-daily scandals erupting from his White House were “scum,” he taunted. They were dishonest, he insisted. They were “the enemy of the people.” Now, more than a year after Trump’s presidential term ended, three volatile lawsuits forged in the culture-war fire he stoked are making their way through the legal system.

The Fox News host discussed with the White House press secretary how to dissuade the president from pursuing claims of voter fraud, newly disclosed documents show.

Margaret Sullivan: The veteran host used a “truth sandwich” approach to counter the former president’s election lies. The idea is to avoid magnifying lies; and the technique is to surround false statements with established truths before and after, thus blunting the effect of what can amount to propaganda.

Text messages — newly released by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection — between Fox News hosts and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, crystallize with new specificity just how tightly Fox News and the White House were entwined during the Trump years, with many of the network’s top hosts serving as a cable cabinet of unofficial advisers.

Former President Donald Trump’s new social media platform Truth Social is expected to launch on Presidents’ Day, Feb. 21, according to the latest Apple App Store listing. Truth Social, which the 45th president announced in October, is the latest conservative alternative to large social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, which the former president has repeatedly slammed for censorship.