California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has joined Donald Trump and his GOP allies on Truth Social, where he’ll be “calling out Republican lies,” he announced Thursday.
“This could get ... interesting,” he quipped.
In a tongue-in-cheek comment, he greets followers in his first video post on the social media platform with: “Hey, everybody, it’s Gov. Gavin Newsom, and I know we’re all on this platform in search for the truth.”
He then points out that eight of the 10 states with the highest crime rates in the nation are Republican-led states.
“The truth is, I’ve not been able to find a simple explanation for the fact that we have a red state murder problem,” Newsom said.
“So the question is simple: What are the laws and policies in those states that are leading to such carnage?” he added.
Former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), now the CEO of Truth Social, welcomed Newsom. “We’re happy to have him,” he told Fox Business, even though Nunes said he doesn’t agree with him “on anything.”
He insisted Truth Social was designed to be an “open platform” regardless of political affiliation.
But though Truth Social has claimed to be a free-speech advocate and enemy of censorship, the operation has developed an overwhelmingly conservative, predictable perspective that highlights Trump’s relentless posts.
The site often features gushing praise of Trump and posts few negative reactions to his comments. Trump said the quiet part out loud earlier this year when he told Fox News that Truth Social was intended to be a “platform for my voice.” He added: “Truth is a platform for my voice and for my supporters.”
“The key question raised by the launch of Truth Social is how impactful can a social media platform be if its user base is, to some extent, politically homogeneous?” Phil Napoli, a Duke public policy professor, told Yahoo Finance earlier this year.
A one-note voice tends to shut down opportunities for debate that could actually draw users, Napoli noted.
Truth Social reported in a filing last month with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had no paid advertisers. Its parent, Trump Media & Technology Group, is losing money and “expects to incur significant losses into the foreseeable future,” the filing said.
Truth Social came under fire last week when several users’ accounts were reportedly suspended after they mentioned the dramatic televised hearings by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Nunes called users’ reports “fake news.” But several users posted screen shots of Truth Social suspending their accounts, which they said occurred immediately after posting about the hearings.
Lots of others have also been suspended, such as one user who was apparently booted for simply picking the user name “DevinNunesCow.”