Tag: devin nunes
Trump's Truth Social App Is Five Alarm Dumpster Fire About To Collapse

Trump's Truth Social App Is Five Alarm Dumpster Fire About To Collapse

Losing the 2020 presidential election was obviously the most tremendous blow to former President Donald "Mango Mussolini" Trump after having been raised to be a winner no matter the cost -- hence his complete and utter breakdown and eventual insurrection. But considering Trump started his foray into politics as a troll on Twitter, one might surmise that getting the boot from the popular social media app is what hurt the most.

Since getting banned from all social media, Trump has been feverishly trying to find another digital platform to host his daily deranged musings without fear of accountability. Well, let's just say that his foray into the business of social media has been about as successful as Trump University. His 45office.com, for example, was basically a crappy website you'd put together for your kid to think they're a king or something. As a result, the site is pretty much a total failure and hasn't been updated in nine months.

Last month, Trump announced the launch of the social messaging app Truth Social, but its launch was a laughable disaster. Led by former far-right Congressman and big-time Trump sycophant Devin Nunes, the launch on February 21 was riddled with errors. Despite having a large number of downloads in the Apple store, a vast number of people were shunted into a "waitlist" to be accepted as a user. Scores of people also encountered system errors when they tried to enter their birthdates to register and received the following message: "Something went wrong. Please try again."

Hilariously enough, Trump himself doesn't even post and, reportedly, is losing interest in the "Truth" app. And even funnier, the corporation that fronted the money predicted that 88 million would be using the app, but so far the former guy only has 80,000 followers.

It looks like Trump is just going to have to find another way to keep trolling America from his asylum at Mar-A-Lago.

'Puppet Theatre': A One-Act Play

'Puppet Theatre': A One-Act Play

Former congressman Devin Nunes, now the chief executive officer of Trump Media and Technology Group, enters Donald Trump’s office at Mar-a-Lago.

NUNES: Ta, da! Triumph!

TRUMP: Yeah, two prosecutors quit from the Manhattan’s DA’s office. A thing of beauty. The new guy doesn’t care. Ha, ha. Those stupid accountants who dropped me, if they’d only waited. Wait this out, that’s the thing. They’ll get lost in the numbers.

NUNES: Yes, Boss. But I mean Truth Social.

TRUMP: They kicked me off Twitter. Now you’re supposed to put them out of business. Get me out of Twitter jail with our own app. Love that instead of tweets it’s going to be “truths.” Retweets, “retruths.” Perfect. Not alternative facts—truths. But—what the fuck?—the launch, thirteen hours outage, 300,000 people couldn’t get on.

NUNES: Yes, Boss. We’re building it from scratch. If you build it, they will come. And up and working, Don, Jr.’s tweet is out there. “Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!” Sorry, I don’t mean tweet. Truth.

TRUMP: Melania won’t even use it to sell the NFT of her eyes and her hat. You’re killing us, Devin.

NUNES: Yes, Boss. But we’re rolling. Big news. I blocked my first account.

TRUMP: Now you’re talking. Block them just like they block us. Who’d you ban, Mitch McConnell? Keep the Old Crow from reaching our base.

NUNES: Check this out. “Your account @DevinNunesCow has been banned.”

TRUMP: Turn him into a Trump Steak. But we need this app to get out of the barnyard. We’ve got a big agenda.

NUNES: Yes, Boss.

TRUMP: We’re finally going to get what we need out of Ukraine. That’s why we need Truth Social, to get the truth out about it. We’re going to get the goods at last. Putin’s a genius, he’s savvy. You know what this invasion is really about, don’t you? I mean, really.

NUNES: No, Boss.

TRUMP: When Putin takes over, we’ll be proven right all along. Putin should have invaded a long time ago. I’d still be president. No question. Ukraine is at the bottom of it all. A lot of it had to do, they say, with Ukraine. It’s very interesting. They have the server, right? From the DNC, Democratic National Committee. The FBI went in, and they told them, ‘Get out of here, we’re not giving it to you.’ They gave the server to CrowdStrike, or whatever it’s called, which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian, they say he’s not, but I say he is, and I still want to see that server. You know, the FBI has never gotten that server. Deep state, out to get me. That’s a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company? See, it wasn’t Russia that hacked the DNC. It was Ukraine. And Putin will find that server and deliver it to us. That’s what the word is.

NUNES: Genius.

TRUMP: When we get that server from Ukraine, then after the Republicans get control of the House after the midterms—guess what?—we’ll get that impeachment, the first one, wiped away. I want you to call Jim Jordan.

NUNES: Yes, Boss.

TRUMP: Zelensky, that’s what I asked him, that’s what the phone call was about. That's what I asked actually in my phone call, if you know. I mean I asked it very point blank, because we’re looking for corruption. There’s tremendous corruption. We're looking for—why should we be giving hundreds of millions of dollars to countries when there’s this kind of corruption? I asked for the server. And the investigation into Biden. I would like you to do us a favor. Perfect phone call.

NUNES: Yes, Boss.

TRUMP: If Zelensky had done the right thing, Biden would have been toast. Election, easy. No January 6th. No second impeachment. We’d have had the server. No first impeachment. Zelensky caused all this trouble. Zelensky didn’t cooperate. Now Putin will deal with him. Putin knows what Zelensky did. Zelensky will have to answer to Putin for what he did to me. Perfect phone call.

NUNES: When do we get the server, Boss?

TRUMP: It’s there. It’s in Kyiv. Some basement. Once Putin gets there, he’ll get it. And all the information on Biden is there. Promise. You’ll see, Rudy will be off the hook. Sent him to Ukraine to get the proof on Biden. If Putin gets to it soon enough, we’ll get it to Rudy, and he can bring it to that phony January 6th Committee, and they’ll have to shut down. Putin’s a genius. Stand back and stand by.

NUNES: How will Putin get it to us, Boss?

TRUMP: There’s going to be a new president of Ukraine. Zelensky is a fraud, a hoax. Putin will put in the right guy who should have been there from the start. Maybe Paul Manafort can go back to advise him. The pardon was perfect.

NUNES: Savvy, Boss.

TRUMP: I’ve got it all worked out. The right guy in place, think about this, Trump Tower Kyiv.

NUNES: Perfect.

TRUMP: It begins with the server. And then Biden will be gone like Zelensky. The House will impeach him. Just make that call to Jim Jordan. And we’ll put a stop to all these investigations. Puppet, puppet, who’s the puppet?

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln:A Self-Made Man,Wrestling With His Angel ,andAll the Powers of Earth. His play This Town, about a scandalous White House dog, was produced in 1995 by LA TheatreWorks. This is the thirteenth in his "Trump Cycle" series of one-act plays published in The National Memo, including The Pardon, Epstein's Ghost, Ivanka's Choice, Sunset Boulevard, The Exclusive, The Role Model, A Modest Proposal, The Exit Interview, The Hitler Gospel, Father Knows Best,The Gold Medal Winner, and All I Want For Christmas Is Melania’s Non-Fungible Token.

Led By Nunes, Trump's Social Media Media Startup Falters

Led By Nunes, Trump's Social Media Media Startup Falters

Donald Trump, expecting to make lots of money off his upstart social media venture Truth Social, has turned down offers to work with other platforms such as Gettr and Parler already on the rise in a flood of right-wing media sites.

Trump is simply too greedy to cut in anyone else on what he's sure will be a rich payoff from the conspiracy-laden haven he’s itching to launch. There's just one problem: It's a Trump venture and, therefore, already flailing, per The Washington Post.

Sure, Trump had a knack for sending off bogus tweets that lit his MAGA cultists on fire. That was his daily, if not hourly, ritual for four full years at the White House. That was governance to Trump.

But actually starting up a company that supposedly does something other than bloviate is proving to be a touch more difficult of a task for ol' Trump. For months, that failure has reduced twitchy-finger Trump to releasing nothing but a string of disgruntled statements that limp along in the mediascape until they're soon forgotten.

Twitter has permanently suspended Trump following lies he spouted in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Facebook and Instagram ultimately imposed a two-year suspension on Trump, which pushes the prospect of his reentrance on the platforms past the midterm election. While blowing up Twitter with lies and outrage was Trump's favorite pastime, Facebook actually served as a better small-dollar fundraising tool for Trump.

In the meantime, Trump's “Truth” platform has fallen victim to a series of delays ranging from the dozens of hires necessary to staff it up to scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission over a planned merger between Trump Media and a publicly traded company, Digital World Acquisition. Such mergers, made through a Special Purpose Acquisition Company or SPAC, typically take five to six months from the time the merger is announced to the time the deal closes, according to Michael Ohlrogge, an assistant law professor at New York University.

Enter new Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes, the newly resigned California congressman and former dairy farmer who appears to have no credentials equal to the task of standing up a social media startup.

Trump also didn't exactly hit it out of the park with his debut of TruthSocial.com last fall. The Post writes:

The early version of the site was quickly taken down after pranksters posted a photo of a defecating pig under the username “donaldjtrump.” Days later, the creators of the open-source social media software that the site used, Mastodon, sent Trump Media a letter saying Truth Social had violated the terms under which the software could be used.

Following that debacle, a planned beta launch in November never actually took place. Apple's App Store pegs the expected launch date for the Truth Social app at February 21.

Meanwhile, Nunes is reportedly burning up the phone lines with venture capitalists to get the lowdown on how to build a company.

Nonetheless, a Trump spokesperson said he remains undeterred.

“The demand for President Trump, his leadership, and his ‘America First’ solutions continue to grow despite Big Tech’s attack on his freedom of speech,” spokesman Taylor Budowich said.

If he could just find an outlet, Trump's special brand of paranoia would be super duper popular. Too bad he’s tripping over his greed.

Devin Nunes Retiring From Congress To Head Trump Media Outfit

Devin Nunes Retiring From Congress To Head Trump Media Outfit

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California is retiring from Congress at the end of 2021 to work for former President Donald Trump.

The news was first reported by Alex Tavlian of The San Joaquin Valley Sun, which initially claimed he'd stay on until 2022 before updating with the much more rapid timeline. The Trump Media and Technology Group later released a statement confirming that Nunes had accepted an offer to become its CEO, a position he'll assume in January of the new year.

Many observers quickly pointed out that Nunes was next in line to be chair of the Ways and Means committee, should Republicans take control of the House of Representatives — a particularly powerful position in Congress. But apparently, his options outside of government were even more enticing.

Nunes came to public prominence as a fierce defender of Trump during his presidency. For the first two years, Nunes led the House Intelligence Committee and waged an aggressive campaign against the government's investigations into the then-president. He was an aggressive opponent of the Russia investigation and stoked conspiracy theories about an inside plot to bring Trump down.

Nunes was also an outspoken critic of the House investigation of Trump's efforts to induce Ukraine into going after Joe Biden, which eventually led to the first of his two impeachments.

Since taking a prominent place in American politics, the California congressman launched a sweeping effort to silence some of his critics by weaponizing a series of lawsuits against media organizations and individuals whose reporting and commentary displeased him. Those lawsuits have been largely unsuccessful in court, but the effort may have nevertheless contributed to a chilling effect on people interested in speaking out against him.