CNN host Abby Phillip struggled to contain her laughter after a MAGA guest offered a bizarre defense of the president’s latest Truth Social scheme.
Speaking on CNN’s NewsNight on Thursday, Phillip and her panelists examined President Donald Trump’s growing fortune and the string of ventures critics have accused of being grifts, including his latest scheme, which introduced the idea of charging $100,000 a month for early access to his Truth Social posts.
During the conversation, pro-Trump guest Carla Sands, an American businesswoman who served as ambassador to Denmark during the first Trump administration, shifted the discussion toward Democrats, accusing them of colluding with major social media companies to remove Trump, 80, from their platforms and ultimately forcing him to create his own.
“He wouldn’t even have Truth Social if the Democrats hadn’t colluded with Big Tech and canceled him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, every single platform he was taken down and banned while he was the sitting U.S. President,” Sands, 65, said, prompting Phillip to question the basis of the claim.
“Wait. Hold on. Wait. Democrats colluded with social media companies when Trump was president to force them to-?” Phillip began, as Sands maintained her position and insisted the claim was “correct.”
Phillip, 37, then reminded Sands, “Remember, he was in charge of the government at the time,” but Sands stood by her argument, saying “there was a whole hidden, there was all kinds of collusion going on behind his back,” prompting the CNN host to burst out laughing.
“OK, so Democrats have all kinds of extraordinary powers,” Phillip said.
Trump was banned from several major social media platforms in January 2021 following the Capitol Hill attack, while he was still in office, with his presidential term set to end on January 20, when he was succeeded by Joe Biden. The companies cited the risk of further incitement of violence as the reason for suspending the president’s accounts.
Meta suspended Trump from Facebook and Instagram a day after the Jan. 6 attack, while Twitter followed with a ban the next day. He was also banned or restricted from YouTube and other major platforms.
Though Trump’s accounts were eventually restored years later, his Trump Media & Technology Group launched Truth Social in October 2021, pitching it as a platform designed to “stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech” and champion “free speech.”
Since then, the president has used Truth Social as a platform for everything from praising his multimillion-dollar White House renovation projects, including his lavish ballroom plans, to issuing dramatic warnings that “a whole civilization will die tonight.”
“His tweets move markets,” a leading macro hedge fund executive said in response to last Thursday’s announcement by Trump Media & Technology Group that the president would offer Wall Street firms faster access to his posts for a $100,000-a-month subscription fee.
“We all need to pay up,” he said, adding, “It’s so bad that nothing surprises me in that sense anymore.”
Trump and his family are believed to have amassed billions since his return to the White House last January, with his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. overseeing the family business while he serves as president.
Financial disclosures released earlier this month showed that a wide-ranging portfolio of branded ventures, from Trump watches and Trump Bibles to cryptocurrency projects, contributed to a fortune estimated at more than $2 billion during his first year back in the White House.
