Trump Reveals Surprising Phone Call With Zuckerberg, What He Said About 2024 Election
President Donald Trump offered insight into a recent phone call he received from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg following the July 13th assassination attempt against him, telling Fox News he believes the onetime critic is now firmly in his corner.
During a Thursday interview with Maria Bartiromo, the 45th president spoke warmly about his call with the Facebook founder who praised him as a “badass” for standing up after being struck by a rifle round and pumping his fist in the air. A historic photo of Trump’s blood-smeared face in front of an American flag backdrop captured the moment and was even set to grace the August cover of Time Magazine, but still, the social media giant accidentally censored it. Zuckerberg called to apologize and much more, according to President Trump.
“So Mark Zuckerberg called me – first of all he called me a few times. He called me after the event and said ‘that was really amazing, that was very brave,’ and he actually announced he was not going to support a Democrat because he can’t, because he respected me for what I did that day,” he told host Maria Baritomo. “I think what I did, to me it was a normal response. But I was called by Mark Zuckerberg yesterday, the day before on this same subject. And he actually apologized. He said they made a mistake, et cetera et cetera, and they corrected the mistake.” He noted “nobody called from Google” about a similar censoring of the image.
Unlike Facebook, “Google has been very bad, very irresponsible,” he continued, “and I have a feeling that Google’s going to be close to shut down, because I don’t think Congress is gonna take it. I really don’t think so.”
🚨 BREAKING: Trump says Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called him after the assassination attempt, said he isn’t going to support a Democrat and apologized for Facebook and Instagram censoring the iconic photos of him with his fist raised.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 2, 2024
Washington has put Facebook in its crosshairs going back to the 2016 elections when reports emerged that Russian intelligence officials were using the platform to spread disinformation about the Trump and Hillary Clinton campaigns. As a result, Zuckerberg promised in congressional hearings to tamp down on false political rhetoric and in recent years has ordered his company to restrict political advertising in a bid to lower the temperature of a virtual town square that awards anger and engagement. The Facebook founder has also refashioned his own image, taking up kickboxing and posting annual 4th of July videos of him wakeboarding while drinking a beer and holding an American flag.
He joins rival X owner Elon Musk in supporting – at least tacitly – President Trump, another indication that Silicon Valley is torn between supporting a Republican many privately despise but feel will be good for business versus a liberal Kamala Harris more in line with their “values.” On Wednesday more than 100 tech investors like Reid Hoffman and Vinod Khosla pledged to fundraise and campaign for Harris, the New York Times reported. That puts Zuckerberg and Musk at odds with the industry’s money crowd, though both have well-established platforms that answer to shareholders instead of private financiers.
