Joe Walsh faced a temporary Twitter ban after he said that FBI Director Christopher Wray should punch President Trump in the face.
“.@realDonaldTrump last night called Christopher Wray & other FBI leaders ‘scum.’ Wray is a patriotic public servant. To defend his and the agency’s honor, he should resign immediately. And then he should punch Donald Trump in the face,” Walsh, a Republican presidential candidate, former congressman, and talk show host, said a tweet Wednesday.
Walsh referenced comments Trump made at a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday while reacting to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.
âThe FBI also sent multiple undercover human spies to surveil and record people associated with our campaign. Look how theyâve hurt people. Theyâve destroyed the lives of people that were great people. That are still great people,â Trump said. âTheir lives have been destroyed by scum. Okay? By scum.â
“You have great people in the FBI but not in leadership,” Trump added.
Twitter sent an email to Walsh that said it “temporarily limited some” of Walsh’s account features because it found that the tweet violated the site’s policy against abuse and harassment, according to a screenshot from Walsh campaign manager Lucy Caldwell. Once Walsh deleted the tweet, he was barred from interacting with tweets for 12 hours.
Caldwell blamed “the Trump Twitter mob” for the temporary ban.
Thought youâd be hearing from @WalshFreedom tonight on Twitter? You wonât…because he wrote this and then got banned, no doubt thanks to the Trump Twitter mob. #Walsh2020 #BeBrave pic.twitter.com/UrT8W6Z6KW
— Lucy Caldwell (@lucymcaldwell) December 11, 2019
The Twitter account was restored, and Walsh resumed tweeting as early as 8:25 a.m. on Thursday. He did not address the temporary ban from his account.
Walsh faced criticism for old incendiary tweets when he launched his primary challenge to Trump in August.
“The single greatest act of racism in American history was the election of Barack Obama. People voted for him simply because he was black,” Walsh tweeted in 2016. “I have a right to call Obama a Muslim,” he tweeted in 2018.
He has since apologized for the tweets.
Walsh faces slim chances of toppling President Trump, who had a 90% approval rating among Republicans in a November Gallup poll. Several state Republican parties, including South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, and Kansas, have, or are set to, cancel presidential primary and caucus contests, arguing that it is not prudent to spend money on the contests when Trump is likely to win the nomination in a landslide.
