Schiff: Trump reinstatement on Twitter a ‘terrible mistake’

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said on Sunday that Elon Musk made a “terrible mistake” by reinstating former President Trump’s suspended Twitter account.

“As we showed in the January 6th hearings, the president used that platform to incite that attack on the Capitol, his comments about the vice president, his own vice president, put Mike Pence’s life in danger,” Schiff, a member of the House panel investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol, told co-host Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week.”

“He showed no remorse about that. He continues to lie about his actions on that day,” Schiff added. “He talks about pardoning the people who attacked police officers and attacked the Capitol that day.”

Schiff also said that this move to bring Trump back to Twitter contradicts what Musk, who officially acquired the social media platform late last month, envisioned for it. 

“And it contradicts what Elon Musk said that he was going to establish a counsel to evaluate this and further contradicts Musk and his claimed concern about bots on his own platform to subject the decision to a poll on the platform that could be easily abused that way,” Schiff said. 

“It just underscores the erratic leadership of Twitter now under Musk, but also the security concerns, with security people fleeing Twitter and what that means for the protection of Americans’ private data,” he added. 

In a tweet on Saturday, Musk officially announced that Trump’s Twitter account had been  reinstated after a nearly two-year ban that began in wake of the Capitol insurrection. 

Musk reinstated Trump’s account after conducting a poll the day before asking users if they wanted the former president back on the platform. A slim majority of users voted in favor of reinstating Trump’s account. 

Even with his account being reinstated, Trump recently said he has “no reason” to return to Twitter.

“I don’t see any reason for it, they have a lot of problems at Twitter, you see what’s going on. It may make it, it may not make it,” Trump said in his speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting.