Donald Trump moves to assert party control despite Facebook ban

The former president reiterats his false claims of election fraud and demanding a leadership shake-up.

Donald Trump says it’s a ‘total disgrace’ for online giants to institute social media bans. Picture: AFP

Social media has been his weapon of choice for battling Republican dissidents, but Donald Trump is seeking to tighten his iron grip on the party even after a ruling late on Wednesday extending his ban on Facebook.

Despite losing the presidency to Joe Biden last year and enduring a second impeachment after January’s deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, he remains his party’s most influential figure.

On Thursday AEST, he blasted party leaders who have reprimanded him, including top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, or who voted to impeach him in January, most notably number three House of Representatives Republican Liz Cheney, who appears increasingly likely to face removal from her conference chairmanship.

“Liz Cheney is a warmongering fool who has no business in Republican Party leadership,” Mr Trump said in a statement, adding that he backs leaders who believe in his Make America Great Again movement.

New York Republican congresswoman “Elise Stefanik is a far superior choice, and she has my COMPLETE and TOTAL endorsement for GOP conference chair,” he said.

Ms Stefanik, a 36-year-old onetime moderate, voted against certifying the election results for Mr Biden in multiple swing states. The former president’s endorsement comes amid rising party tensions over Ms Cheney, the most senior Republican woman in congress, who has refused to tamp down her denunciations of Mr Trump. And it all but assures that a conference-wide vote on whether to keep Ms Cheney in the post will occur soon after politicians return to Washington next week.

Ms Cheney, a third-term representative from Wyoming, punched back at Mr Trump in a new op-ed. Her party was “at a turning point”, she wrote in The Washington Post, calling on Republicans to “steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality”. “History is watching,” she added.

The internal tug of war caught the attention of Mr Biden, who said he was surprised at the Republican revolt. “I think the Republicans are further away from trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for than I thought they would be at this point,” he said.

Minutes after Facebook’s independent oversight board upheld a ban on Mr Trump he blasted the restriction as a “total disgrace” and repeated his lie that Mr Biden and other Democrats stole the election.

Ms Cheney “continues to unknowingly and foolishly say that there was no election fraud in the 2020 presidential election when in fact, the evidence … shows the exact opposite,” he said. “Had gutless and clueless MINORITY Leader Mitch McConnell … fought to expose all of the corruption that was presented at the time, with more found since, we would have had a far different presidential result, and our country would not be turning into a socialist nightmare.”

With Mr Trump considering another White House run, he launched a new page on his website where he pledges to present information to voters “straight from the desk of Donald J Trump”.

The oversight board, whose decisions are binding on Facebook, said Mr Trump had “created an environment where a serious risk of violence was possible” with his comments regarding the January 6 rampage by his supporters at the US Capitol.

But while endorsing the initial ban, the panel also determined that “it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension”. “Within six months of this decision, Facebook must re-examine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7 and decide the appropriate penalty,” it said in a written opinion.

“It is not permissible for Facebook to keep a user off the platform for an undefined period, with no criteria for when or whether the account will be restored,” the board said, inviting Facebook to “either impose a time-limited suspension or account deletion”.

AFP