Former President Donald Trump isn’t thrilled with Facebook’s decision to suspend him for at least two years, saying on Monday the major tech platforms are “destroying our country” and “they don’t want to hear a sane voice.”
During a phone interview with Fox Business, Trump called the social network’s suspension a “disgrace.” His comments come after Facebook last week said Trump wouldn’t be allowed back onto the platform until early 2023 at the earliest; Trump was initially suspended back in January, one day after hundreds of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
At the time, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Trump was booted for using the platform “to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.” The risk of leaving him on Facebook, Zuckerberg added, was “simply too great.” Trump was also permanently banned from Twitter that same week.
On Monday, Trump called out Facebook and Twitter for giving him the boot, saying the companies don’t enforce their policies equally.
“They allow dictators that say ‘death to America.’ That’s okay. ‘Death to Israel.’ That’s okay. But with me, they take me off, because they are radical left crazy people and they’re destroying our country and they don’t want to hear a sane voice,” Trump said.
Trump may have been referencing Ayatollah Khamenei still having an active Twitter account, even after calling for Israel to be “eradicated” on the platform.
He then added he was close to 200 million followers across Facebook and Twitter when he was kicked off both platforms. That’s closer to 150 million followers, since Trump had 88 million Twitter followers and 56 million followers combined across Facebook and Instagram earlier this year.
You can check out a clip of his interview below, courtesy of The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona: