Trump news today: Ex-president says he ‘probably wouldn’t have any interest’ in returning to Twitter

After the 2020 election, Donald Trump was sure he could overturn the results, telling then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he had been speaking to officials in Pennsylvania and Michigan, states that Joe Biden won, who told him that they would be able to keep Mr Trump in the White House.

“I’ve been calling folks in those states and they’re with us,” Mr Trump said, according to a new book by New York Times political reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.

A CNN excerpt details how Mr Trump’s false claims put Mr McConnell in a tight spot while he was trying to focus on the two Senate runoffs in Georgia, both of which were later won by Democrats.

Mr McConnell stayed quiet about Mr Trump’s lies to try to stop him from ruining the GOP’s chances in Georgia, the book – This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future – states.

“We’ve got to stay focused on Georgia,” Mr McConnell told colleagues after getting off the phone with Mr Trump.

“What it looks to me like he’s doing is setting this up so he can blame the governor and the secretary of state if we lose,” Mr McConnell told the reporters. “He’s always setting up somebody to blame it on.”

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk has claimed that living in higher buildings leads to people becoming more liberal voters.

“We have a huge housing crisis in our country, the likes of which we have not seen in a long period of time,” Mr Kirk said during an event hosted by Turning Point USA – Mr Kirk’s organisation pushing conservative ideas on high school and university campuses.

“I believe that we need to build horizontally, not vertically. It’s one of my speeches – developers don’t like it when I say this, but it’s true,” he added. “The higher the building, the more liberal the voter. It just is. The closer to the ground you are, the more conservative you are.”

“We should encourage people to spread horizontally and not vertically. Look at Denver. The higher the high rises – has Denver become less free, or more free? It’s become a dystopian nightmare,” he claimed.

“Now, you might say, ‘Charlie, it’s a correlation with causation’. Think about it. If you’re on the 32nd floor, renting not owning, if you’re not in the weeds and in the yard and understanding what it takes to grow food and to maintain the land – are you gonna be more or less likely to actually be a conservative?” he asked.

“The higher the building, every single study shows, they become more liberal over time,” he said. “It’s happening in Phoenix, it’s happened in Denver, happened in Atlanta, happened in Dallas, happened in Chicago – everywhere, and yet few people actually say that out loud.”

While it’s unclear what studies Mr Kirk was referring to, The Atlantic staff writer Derek Thompson wrote in September 2019 that it’s “conceivable that living in a city might naturally promote ideologies that correspond with the modern Democratic Party”.

“The modern city brings its residents into constant interaction with the fact of, and necessity for, state intervention. Urban residents trade cars for public transit, live in neighborhoods with local trash codes, and deal with planning commissions about shadows, ocean views, and parking rights,” he added.

Mr Thompson noted that those who live in cities “are exquisitely sensitive to the consequences of individual behavior in a dense place where one man’s action is another man’s nuisance. As a result, residents of dense cities tend to reject libertarianism as unacceptable chaos and instead agitate for wiser governance related to health care, housing policy, and climate change”.

Former President Barack Obama appeared to take a shot at Donald Trump over his past false claims that his predecessor in the White House wasn’t born in the US.

Mr Obama appeared on NBC’s Today programme to promote his Netflix show Our Great National Parks. Together with host Al Roker, Mr Obama led a group of kids on a scavenger hunt in the Great Falls National Park in Virginia.

Mr Obama at one point remembered seeing whales migrating in Hawaii and one of the kids noted that he was born in the island state.

“I was born in Hawaii, yeah … Honolulu. See, you know more than some people know about where I was born,” he said.

After providing his long-form birth certificate, Mr Obama joked at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner that “no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald”.

“That’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like: Did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?” he added.

Donald Trump has told SiriusXM’s Americano Media that he wouldn’t go back to Twitter if his ban was lifted during an interview in which he also boasted about Hispanic support for the Republican Party.

Mr Trump also said people would be “very happy” about his plans for the 2024 election, which he said would be made public after the midterms in the fall.

“I’ll tell you this: I think a lot of people are going to be happy. I’ll announce it after the midterms, but a lot of people are going to be very happy,” Mr Trump told La Política.

He also claimed credit for Hispanic support for the GOP in the interview obtained by Fox News Digital.

“I think we really have a relationship … I think I started it and did very well in 2016. We did much better in almost every way – as you know I got 12 million more votes in the second election in 2020. But we did really well with the Hispanics,” he said.

“I did great with the Hispanics. And you know why? Because they’re very incredible people with great energy, and they’re very entrepreneurial. And they also understood the border. You know, they understand the border better than anybody else. And they want security at the border,” he added.

In the summer of 2015 when Mr Trump announced his 2016 bid for the White House, he said: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems.”

“They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting,” he added at the time.

Concerning Twitter, Mr Trump said in the interview set to air on Wednesday night that he “probably wouldn’t have any interest” in going back.

“You know, Twitter has become very boring. They’ve gotten rid of a lot of their good voices … a lot of their conservative voices,” he added.

Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has said that actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson could give the former president a “run for his money” in the 2024 presidential election.

Mr Mulvaney told Politico on Tuesday that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis “could give him a run for his money”, South Carolina Senator “Tim Scott can give him a run for his money” and The Rock “could give him a run for his money”.

“It’s a short list,” he added.

“By the way, there’s one other person who could beat him, which is himself,” he added.

Mr Mulvaney resigned from his position as special envoy to Northern Ireland after the 6 January insurrection.

“Donald Trump is sometimes his own worst enemy when it comes to campaigning,” Mr Mulvaney said.

A video of a kid at a Trump rally in North Carolina has gone viral after he said he was excited to “see Joe Biden” and quickly being corrected by his parents.

Lawyer Ron Filipkowski shared the clip from the Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), best known for its live streams of Trump events on its YouTube channel after its founding in 2015.

The video, filmed ahead of the rally on Saturday, had received around 2.7 million views as of Wednesday morning.

In the footage, the RSBN reporter asks the parents how excited they…