Former President Donald Trump has posted on Facebook for the first time since January 6, 2021, the day that rioters attacked the US Capitol.
"I'M BACK!" Trump wrote in the post, which include a short CNN clip of him from the night he was elected president during which he said: "Sorry to keep you waiting. Complicated business. Complicated."
The former president's Facebook and Instagram accounts had been banned for two years following the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. They were restored early last month after the Trump's 2024 campaign asked Meta, the platforms' parent company, to unblock his Facebook account.
Trump's posts on January 6, 2021, included election lies and an attack on then-Vice President Mike Pence, before calling on rioters to be peaceful. The House select committee that investigated January 6 used several of the former president's social media posts from that day to show his inaction as the violence unfolded.
Trump's campaign had previously signaled that it would leap at the opportunity to resume using his likeness in its Facebook advertisements. "It is the most important vehicle for fundraising and for reaching a lot of people in the persuadable audience," an adviser previously told CNN.
However, as president, Trump had primarily communicated with his political base through Twitter, which he was banned from shortly before Facebook. Despite having his Twitter account restored in November, the former president has not returned to that platform yet.
Democrats had warned Meta of the consequences of Trump's return to the platform, with some lawmakers writing in a letter to the company late last year that Trump should be kept off the site as he continues to attack American democracy by repeating lies about the 2020 election. Republicans, free speech advocates and others, however, argued that maintaining the ban was an undue act of censorship and could put Trump at a disadvantage as a 2024 candidate.
