A Trump 2024 announcement looks set to come just days from now.
President Trump on Monday confirmed that he’ll be making a “very big announcement” about whether he’ll mount another presidential bid in 2024 at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. And he’ll do so, he promised, on Tuesday, November 15, exactly one week after the US midterm elections.
So far, his aides and confidantes in his orbit haven’t confirmed to the press what his announcement will entail, one way or the other. Former Trump White House adviser Jenna Ellis, however, said in a tweet she posted on Monday that the Trump 2024 announcement next week will indeed see him declaring his candidacy for president in 2024.
Trump 2024 announcement next week?
When and if he does, in fact, announce his candidacy on Nov. 15, it will pose one question among many:
What happens to his existing social media bans?
Trump: "I am going to be making a big announcement on Tuesday November 15 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. We want nothing to detract from the importance of tomorrow" pic.twitter.com/mU3R4JjXIy
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 8, 2022
Trump’s suspension from Facebook, for example, was already set to expire in January. Moreover, an executive from Facebook parent company Meta has already publicly confirmed that Trump is on track for his suspension to be lifted in January — and it would seem to be not too much of a stretch to assume the company might do so early if he becomes an official presidential candidate in a matter of days.
“It’s not a capricious decision,” Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg said during an event a few months ago. “We will look at the signals related to real-world harm to make a decision whether at the two-year point — which is early January next year — whether Trump gets reinstated to the platform.”
Clegg went on to confirm that Meta would reveal its decision about Trump no later than January 7, 2023 (a year and a day following the January 6 riots this year at the US Capitol complex).
What will Elon do?
Besides what Facebook might do, meanwhile, it’s hard to imagine that Twitter’s mercurial, Republican-friendly new owner Elon Musk — who’s shown no qualms about ramming into existence whatever he wants to see happen to the platform — would drag his feet about bringing Trump back on to Twitter. Again, if the former president announces a Trump 2024 bid next week.
Indeed, Twitter is a much different company today compared to the one that booted the former president from the platform earlier this year. Its ownership and workforce were largely believed to be philosophically opposed to Trump and his MAGA philosophy. Whereas, now, Musk has gutted that very workforce, cutting thousands of jobs, and Musk himself is tweeting out pro-Republican messages from his own Twitter account.
