Truth Social CEO and ex-congressman Devin Nunes stumbled with wild speculation and ridiculous claims during a Fox Business Network grilling on Thursday morning, all while bad news and ridicule of the Trump-owned social-media platform continue to pile up.
Over the past week, Truth Social has faced a bumpy launch, top executives fleeing the company, a parent company whose stock price has plummeted, claims of censorship, and the scorn of unhappy users over former President Donald Trump still not using the platform. All these compounding problems left even the traditionally obsequious Trump ally and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo and her on-air colleagues with serious questions about the dumpster fire of a social-media app.
During a chat with Bartiromo’s FBN program, Nunes tossed out outlandish claims in defense of Truth Social, including that the Trump-created platform is home to more “interactions” than Twitter—the immensely popular site that the twice-impeached president, who is banned from tweeting, so clearly seeks to rip off.
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“It’s clear that Twitter is kind of a ghost town,” Nunes declared. “There’s not very much activity over at Twitter right now, especially when you compare it to sites like ours,” he laughably added, failing to provide any concrete numbers. “Our interactions are already beating Twitter.”
Bartiromo seemed unconvinced.
“At the same time, there are a lot of people who can’t even log in to see where they are in the waitlist,” she remarked, referring to how many users still wait in a queue of several hundred thousand simply just to complete a login for the app.
Bartiromo then unleashed one of her key panelists, Wall Street investor Lou Basenese, to give Nunes an even more intense grilling.
“There are things that line up more to be short your stock than long your stock,” he pointedly told Nunes, which in investor-speak means Wall Street types wouldn’t seek to invest a favorable position in the platform as it sits. “I would love to see the interaction, but I have been waiting six weeks, and I’ve only gone down 30,000 people on the waitlist.”
With libertarian billionaire Musk’s new Twitter shareholder position, Basenese wondered whether Trump would simply return to Twitter if his permanent ban is overturned and if that would render the Nunes-helmed Trump Social useless.
“Twitter is a house of cards and a ghost town,” Nunes defiantly responded, prompting Basenese to immediately interject: “Sir, there’s 217 million users there though. It’s not a ghost town.”
“According to them. I think, yeah, once you get rid of the bots and trolls, you really have a house of cards,” Nunes then explained before once again claiming that users on Truth Social not only have “more engagement” than their larger Twitter rival but also have “more followers in many cases.”
As for Musk and Twitter, Nunes shrugged off the idea of the Tesla executive successfully bringing Trump back onto the platform, instead claiming Truth Social will continue to “flourish.”
While the Truth Social mobile app, currently only available on Apple devices, may be experiencing increased engagement, many pro-Trump users on the platform have begun to express fury directed at the likes of Nunes and Trump social-media guru Dan Scavino for the lack of actual Trump updates on the platform.
“Trump’s thumbs broke?” one such MAGA user replied to Scavino this past week. “The whole scam you guys are perpetrating on the Patriots of this county is shameful.”
