Devin Nunes Tells Us What’s New at TRUTH Social

CLAY: We are joined now by former congressman Devin Nunes, who is now with TRUTH Social, and there’s a big battle going on, lawsuits filed, Twitter versus Elon Musk. How do you break it all down, Congressman?

REP. NUNES: Hey, it’s great to be with you guys, and congratulations on your one-year anniversary. I had a good time. I had to go to New York City, which is not my favorite place to go, but it was great to see you guys there.

BUCK: Thanks for coming.

CLAY: Yeah, appreciate you coming out.

REP. NUNES: Yeah. So, look, I view it this way. I think that maybe Elon Musk got into something first — he had a hundred million followers on Twitter — and he probably just didn’t know any better. I think once he started inspecting everything, it’s what I’ve known for a long time, which is that there’s just a lot of spam and bot accounts on Twitter. I’ve always said that at TRUTH Social, our competition is not Twitter. Our competition is TikTok and Facebook and Instagram. That’s where the users are here in the United States, and I don’t know how this is all gonna end, but it’s gonna be lots of fireworks to watch. They’re definitely fighting this in the press. I don’t know if you guys have noticed that.

CLAY: Oh, yeah.

REP. NUNES: It’s a strange way to fight a court battle. (laughs)

BUCK: Devin, what do you think is going on here? Clay and I have been talking about this a bit, and we try to tell everybody that social media platforms in general — even for those who aren’t on them, think that they’re a waste of time, whatever — are so influential in terms of communication. They really are massively influential in our politics, in our elections, that to ignore them is to do so at your peril.

I think that the conservatives have done that, unfortunately, until pretty recently. I know you’re a part of the movement to turn that around. We let these activist leftists takeover and then wondered, “Wait, hold on, they hate us and they’re shutting us down?” (laughs) Turns out that, yeah, that’s exactly what’s going on. But with Elon here, do you think this is just haggling over the price, or do you think he really wants out?

REP. NUNES: Well, look, there’s no way that the company’s worth $44 billion. I mean, it’s never been profitable. They have an income of — I don’t know — it’s like a billion dollars a quarter, and they’ve never been profitable in their whole existence, and if you look at the user engagement, I think it just continues to drop. So I think he probably… Even for the world’s richest man, $44 billion is real money and then —

BUCK: How is TRUTH different, by the way, can you tell me, how is TRUTH Social different from Twitter, other than obviously the not being run by psycho libs who hate free speech thing. That’s a big part of it.

REP. NUNES: (laughing) Other than the obvious? Yes. So we don’t censor for political views, number one, and we don’t tolerate spam or bot accounts, all right, which you see that a lot of on Twitter. We’re always fighting when they try to get on, but our goal is to really try to look — and we’re try to take the best of TikTok, the best of Instagram, the best of Facebook, the best of Twitter, and put it into one platform that’s intuitive and easy to use. So we have 10 features that we’re building out. We just had a huge update last week. We have five of those features that are now built out, and you will notice if you go on to TRUTH Social, probably it will look a little bit more like Instagram, if you’re on Instagram, than it does Twitter now.

CLAY: Congressman, Donald Trump has gotten a lot more active on the TRUTH website. So, if there are people out there who quit Twitter because they were frustrated over the censorship that’s going on, what can you tell us about 45’s activity on TRUTH Social and what people could expect to find if they decided to go follow the former president and hang out on the platform?

REP. NUNES: Well, he loves it, and I have to remind everybody of this: Donald Trump didn’t need a new company. He had plenty of companies to run, and I didn’t need a new job. The whole mission of our company is to open the internet back up and give the American people their voice back. So what you will see with Donald Trump is he is on there just like what he used to do on social media. The other day — you guys will like this (laughs) — he was engaged in the PGA and what’s the new, LIV fight, the LIV?

CLAY: Yeah. That’s right.

REP. NUNES: Golf tournament that was launched. So he’ll talk about everything from that to politics, and he retruths people, stories that he likes, and he’s on there all the time. I think his last post was yesterday. It was a post about his ex-wife who, unfortunately, passed away yesterday, and I talked to him this morning, I think he’s just taking a little break from social media today.

BUCK: Ivana Trump passed away, for anybody who didn’t see the headline on that. Go ahead, Devin.

REP. NUNES: Oh, yeah, sorry. I didn’t say that. So, yeah, she unfortunately passed away, and I think the president is obviously very sad and bummed out. I just talked to him about an hour ago and you can imagine. It’s gotta be very, very hard on the kids because I think it was just so unexpected. She wasn’t very old, 73 years old.

CLAY: Yeah, there’s no doubt, and we appreciate you coming on with us to break all of this down. Do you think when Trump decides about whether or not he’s going to officially announce on 2024 and whether he’s going to rerun that he might well break that news on your website?

REP. NUNES: (chuckles) Well, that would be my preference.

CLAY: I’m sure that’s something you’re pushing for.

REP. NUNES: Yeah, absolutely, and it would be the irony of all ironies, right? This company only exists because all the tech tyrants kicked him off the platform and took his voice away like they’ve done to millions of Americans. So what a better place than for him to announce on TRUTH Social? Now, I say that. He’s never told me that. Obviously I would want that as CEO, the guy who runs the company, kind of a no-brainer.

But look, and it’s… There’s so many more people, though — I mean, Clay and Buck, you guys are both on there. But what’s incredible I think… Look, people have found that they’re just getting so much more engagement than they get on Twitter and Instagram, especially if you’re kind of a medium to small content creator. A lot of these people have more followers than they did even on those platforms. And that’s saying something being that we’ve only been around a few months, and we’re not even open — we’re not even open globally. Next week we’re gonna begin to open up to our first country, and so stay tuned on that. (crosstalk)

BUCK: Devin, we’re about to get to a hard break here, but if people want to try TRUTH Social, just the TRUTH Social app in the App Store, is that the way to go?

REP. NUNES: Yep. You can get it on Apple at the App Store, or you can go to TRUTHSocial.com and you can get it from any device.

BUCK: Devin Nunes, everybody. Devin, appreciate you being with us, CEO of TRUTH Social.