Trump’s Former Comms Chief Argues Return to Twitter Will Backfire: ‘It’ll Remind Voters of How Unhinged He Was’

The co-hosts of The View discussed Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter on Friday morning and while they lamented the possible return of banned accounts and the increase of hate speech on the already vitriolic platform, Alyssa Farah Griffin poured cold water on the idea that her former boss, Donald Trump, returning to Twitter will do anything but “hurt him.”

“Billionaire Elon Musk just declared the bird is freed, quote-unquote, as he officially took over Twitter. He owns it,” Joy Behar said to kick off the show.

“He paid $44 billion for the social media giant and already fired four top executives, including the one who permanently banned Trump. Musk calls himself a free speech absolutist, but promises he won’t turn to, he won’t turn Twitter into a free for all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences. Really?” Behar continued, adding:

I mean, it’s pretty close to that now, isn’t it? Yeah. So is he going to do anything to fix that, or is it just going to be continuously free? Free for all? What do you say?

“I think it’s going to be a free for all hellscape. And I imagine that Trump will return to unleash his vitriol. Others that have been banned will return to unleash their vitriol,” replied Sunny Hostin.

“I’m always conflicted about the issue of free speech, which doesn’t really even apply here because he’s a private owner,” Hostin added, before a lengthy discussion of free speech:

You go to the extreme when you’re protecting free speech. Because if you if you if you don’t protect the most hateful speech, you don’t really protect any speech. I mean, there are exceptions like inciting violence and that kind of thing.

But we really need to think about is why is it a hellscape? It’s a hellscape because of the people that are on it and the vitriol that anonymously they think they can spew out there.

“Well, and therein lies the problem is social media has had a way of bringing out kind of the worst in humanity. And it does. By the way, there’s a lot of good stuff that’s come from social media, but people give in to their basest instincts when they’re hidden behind anonymity,” jumped in Farah Griffin, Trump’s former director of strategic communications at the White House.

“And it’s interesting because democracy has never really been stress tested for the digital age. I think the closest we got, frankly, was the insurrection and Donald Trump using it as, you know, an incitement tool,” Farah Griffin continued, adding:

But here’s where the free speech debate and I think Elon Musk has a huge uphill battle here to figure out how he’s going to control or, you know, have a free speech platform without having just actual hatred out there.

The problem is this. Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of Iran who’s overseeing egregious human rights abuses against these women who are bravely speaking out is on Twitter.

I think it’s hard to argue that then the former president of the United States can’t be on. So I don’t wish this problem upon anyone. I do think Trump’s going to be back. I think it’s only a matter of days he’ll be back.

“But some good news for you ladies at the table. I think it hurts him to be on Twitter. I don’t think his crazy statements get as much pick up on Truth Social as they did on Twitter this past week,” added Griffin, who has firsthand experience promoting Trump’s message.

“He came after me on Truth Social recently. No one noticed it. It was like if a tree falls in the woods, only that little kind of sector isn’t Twitter different? Twitter is different,” she argued, concluding:

He’s going to have a way bigger platform, and it’s going to remind voters of how unhinged he was, of how much drama he created. And it’s going to make Republicans have to answer for everything. It’s not good for the party or for him.

Watch the full clip above via ABC

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