• Trump spoke to a group of historians on Zoom in July 2021 about his presidency.
  • He said press releases were "far more elegant" than his tweets and said that issuing them "only works for me."
  • He also remarked that he wasn't "stopped by the number of characters" with his statements, unlike on Twitter.

Despite his lingering resentment over being permanently banned from Twitter following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, former President Donald Trump says he's okay with doing things the old-fashioned way: issuing press releases.

"Number one, it's far more elegant," Trump told a group of historians on a Zoom call in July 2021. "And number two, I have — you know, I don't have — I'm not… I'm not stopped by the number of characters. Which is a good thing, actually."

Trump made the comments during a roughly hour-long interview, the full video of which was published by The Atlantic on Monday. The former president was banned by Twitter on January 8, 2021 due to the "risk of further incitement of violence" by his rhetoric.

Asked by Princeton historian Julian E. Zelizer about his use of Twitter, which was a defining feature of his presidency, Trump said the company had "I think illegally" booted him from their platform and then he touted his use of press releases to communicate with the public in the absence of Twitter.

"I went to a system of press releases, and we're getting tremendous traction on those press releases, tremendous," said Trump, before seeming to suggest that he's pioneered the medium of press releases.

"You know, it's a very unusual thing. It only works for me. It wouldn't work for somebody, would do a press release, everyone's going to say what's this all about," he said. 

Most public-facing institutions, including government agencies and offices, campaigns, businesses, nonprofits, and the current White House, use press releases to communicate with the media and the broader public.

Trump first tried to start a blog in May 2021, but he shut it down less than a month later after it gained little traction.

The same is now happening with his new social media site, TRUTH Social, which Insider's Rosie Bradbury reported is a "ghost town" and saw two top executives resign recently.

While praising the press release system that he's come to use — particularly the lack of Twitter's 280 character limit for tweets — Trump acknowledged that it's still important to keep the message relatively brief.

"You don't want to go too long either," he said. "I mean I realize that. You don't need a 10-page statement. But it is a far more elegant way, and it's getting the word out incredibly well."

Trump's press releases are indeed longer than his tweets used to be. On Sunday, he issued an endorsement of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to succeed the late Rep. Don Young in a special election for the state's at-large congressional district. 

The statement, which included a broadside against the late Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, clocked in at roughly 730 characters.

 

Trump added that his releases, like his infamous presidential tweets, are "very spontaneous" but said "a lot of thought goes into them."

The former president also acknowledged frequently getting into trouble for his use of Twitter, including when he retweeted controversial far-right activists and conspiracy theorists and a group of supporters chanting "white power."

"I will say that the things that got me in the most trouble are the retweets, because I retweet, and I do it fairly quickly," he said. "And sometimes you're retweeting somebody that was not the best person to retweet."

Read the original article on Business Insider