Trump quiet after Twitter permanently suspends his account
Trump has been quiet Saturday after Twitter announced Friday evening that it had permanently suspended the president's account.
"After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them -- specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter -- we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence," Twitter wrote in a statement.
Trump's final tweet said he would not be attending Biden's inauguration.
After Twitter's announcement, Politico reported that the president went "ballistic" and “[scrambled] to figure out what his options [were].”
Hours after his suspension, Trump released a statement criticizing the ban and teasing a possible new platform.
"I predicted this would happen," he wrote in part. "We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future. We will not be SILENCED!"
"Twitter is not about FREE SPEECH. They are all about promoting a Radical Left platform where some of the most vicious people in the world are allowed to speak freely," he added.
Trump had attempted to post the same statement on Twitter using the official @POTUS account, but the platform deleted the thread, saying users who are banned cannot post from other accounts.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted Twitter Saturday, comparing the ban of the president to something that would happen in China.
"Silencing speech is dangerous. It’s un-American. Sadly, this isn’t a new tactic of the Left. They’ve worked to silence opposing voices for years. We cannot let them silence 75M Americans. This isn’t the [Chinese Communist Party,]" he wrote on Twitter.
Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley also took to the platform to draw a comparison to China writing, "Silencing people, not to mention the President of the US, is what happens in China not our country. #Unbelievable"
The White House announced Thursday that the president planned to spend the weekend at Camp David before notifying reporters that the trip was canceled. The president has nothing on his schedule Saturday.
-ABC News' Mark Osborne and Conor Finnegan