Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is not “particularly comfortable” with Twitter banning former President Donald Trump.
The New York Times’s Ezra Klein asked during a podcast interview about criticism from conservatives that “liberals have become too censorious and too willing… to censor or suppress ideas and products that offend them.”
Sanders first took a swing at Trump in response, “Look, you have a former president in Trump, who is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe, a pathological liar, an authoritarian, somebody who doesn’t believe in the rule of law. This is a bad news guy. “
The Vermont senator added, “But if you’re asking me, do I feel particularly comfortable that the president, the then president of the United States could not express his views on Twitter? I don’t feel comfortable about it.”
However, Sanders acknowledged he did not know “what the answer is.”
“Do you want to hate speech and conspiracy theories traveling all over this country? No. Do you want the internet to be used for authoritarian purposes and insurrection, if you like? No, you don’t. So how do you balance that? I don’t know, but it is an issue that we have got to be thinking about.”
“I don’t like giving that much power to a handful of high tech people,” he continued. “But the devil is obviously in the details and it’s something we’re going to have to think long and hard on, and that is how you preserve First Amendment rights without moving this country into a big lie mentality and conspiracy theories.”
Trump, who would go on rants on Twitter about various topics, had his @realdonaldtrump account permanently banned on Twitter when he was president — shortly after protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 Capitol.
Additionally, Facebook and Instagram indefinitely suspended his account.
Afterward, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that the Twitter ban on Trump sets a “dangerous” precedent but it “was the right decision.”
However, on Sunday, Jason Miller, a spokesperson for the former president, told Fox News, “I do think that we’re going to see President Trump returning to social, probably in about two or three months here, with his own platform.”
He added, “It’s going to completely redefine the game and everybody’s going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does. But it will be his own platform.”
