Former President Donald Trump says he received a call from a Big Tech CEO after he survived an assassination attempt —and even an apology following censorship of the iconic fist pump photo.
Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp), “called me … a few times.” Zuckerberg not only praised Trump, according to the GOP nominee, but said he would not “support a Democrat” and even “apologized” for Meta’s platforms censoring images and information about the attempted assassination. But the former president did not have nice things to say about anti-free speech search giant Google.
Trump noted that he spoke with Zuckerberg after the assassination attempt. “He called me after the event, and he said, ‘That was really amazing. It was very brave,’ and you know, he actually announced he’s not going to support a Democrat, because he can’t, because he respected me for what I did that day,” Trump said on Fox Business.
Nor was that their only conversation, according to Trump. “But I was called by Mark Zuckerberg yesterday, or the day before, on this same subject, and he actually apologized. He said they made a mistake, etcetera, etcetera, and they’re correcting the mistake.”
Facebook and Instagram censored images of the iconic photo of Trump pumping his fist and saying “fight” following the attempt on his life. The platforms imposed filters and labeled them “Altered photo/video,” as MRC’s CensorTrackrecorded. Zuckerberg admitted the mistake and apologized to Trump for it, the former president emphasized, in contrast to the response from Google.
Google Search also suppressed information about the attempted assassination of Trump. “Google, nobody called from Google,” Trump said.
Trump went on to accuse Google of not being a good actor. “Google has been very bad,” Trump said. “They’ve been very irresponsible, and I have a feeling that Google is going to be close to shutdown, because I don’t think Congress is going to take it. I really don’t think so. Google has to be careful.”
The former president was more positive about Meta, claiming it has learned its lesson since its 2020 election-interfering censorship. “Now, I will say this, I believe Mark Zuckerberg. He called me… he called me a lot. They are working, and I think they’ve fixed it. And he’s not doing what he did four years ago with the $500 million, I don’t believe.” This was a reference to the infamous $400 million+ “Zuckerbucks” that Zuckerberg used to fund and therefore influence counties’ election activities in 2020.
Trump’s comments mirror MRC Free Speech America’s observations of Meta and Google in its reports of how each have interfered in elections since 2008.
While each have censored political candidates a similar number of times, with Google censoring candidates 41 times and Facebook 39 times, Google’s censorship appears to be more deeply embedded in its work as it rarely apologizes or corrects the issue. Meta, and Mark Zuckerberg specifically, meanwhile have at least paid lip service to free speech and made attempts to allow disfavored speech on the platform.
MRC Free Speech America Assistant Editor Gabriela Pariseau contributed to this report.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment and provide an equal platform for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using MRC Free Speech America’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable
