Trump deleted tweets that led to his Twitter lockout
President Trump’s Twitter account has deleted the posts that led to a lockout on his account Wednesday night, a Twitter spokesperson confirmed Thursday.
Twitter on Wednesday temporarily suspended Trump’s account for the first time over posts the president shared about the mob of his supporters that stormed the Capitol. The platform said the posts violated their policies and required the president to delete them before regaining access to his account.
A Twitter spokesperson said Thursday the tweets have been deleted, and per Twitter’s policy Trump will gain access to his account within 12 hours of their deletion.
Facebook on Wednesday also suspended Trump’s account, as well as his Instagram account, for 24 hours after deleting his posts about the Capitol riot.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday said the ban on Trump’s account will be extended indefinitely, at least until President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
A Twitter spokesperson said the company had no information to share as of late Thursday morning regarding potentially extending the suspension on Trump’s Twitter account until the Jan. 20 inauguration.
Wednesday marked the most drastic action the platforms have taken against Trump’s accounts.
The move was triggered by a one-minute video Trump posted urging his supporters who forced their way into the Capitol to go home, but in the video he also repeated unsubstantiated claims about widespread election fraud.
The video was removed by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube by early Wednesday evening.
Trump followed up with a similar text post on Facebook and Twitter, which was also later removed before the platforms locked Trump’s account.
Amid the suspension of his account, Trump issued a statement shared on Twitter by Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff for communications, acknowledging the end of his term.
“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” Trump said in the statement shared by Scavino “I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”
The statement was shared just minutes after congressional lawmakers formally tabulated Electoral College votes showing Biden’s victory, shortly before 4 a.m.
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