Trump says Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos called him after assassination attempt to praise his defiance
Donald Trump received phone calls from a pair of unlikely well-wishers — Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos — after the Republican presidential candidate survived an assassination attempt, according to a report.
Zuckerberg, the Facebook boss who once banned Trump from the social media platform, reached out to laud the former president on his defiance after being bloodied by a bullet, telling him there was “no way” he could vote for a Democrat in the 2024 election in light of what took place, Trump said in an interview with New York magazine published Monday.
“Mark Zuckerberg called up and said, ‘I’ve never supported a Republican before, but there’s no way I can vote for a Democrat in this election,’” Trump told the publication.
“He’s a guy that, his parents, everybody was always Democrat. He said, ‘I will never vote for the people running against you after watching what you did.’”
Bezos, the Amazon founder and owner of the left-leaning Washington Post, also called and was wowed by Trump’s bravery after being shot during the rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, Trump claimed.
With blood streaming down his face, Trump, who was surrounded by a phalanx of Secret Service agents hauling him off stage, pumped his fist to the crowd of supporters, urging them to “fight, fight.”
“He said, ‘It is the most incredible thing I’ve ever watched,’” Trump said of his conversation with Bezos.
“And he appreciated what I did, in the sense of getting up and letting people know.”
Zuckerberg’s reported call to Trump doesn’t mean he plans to vote for the Republican in November, a spokesperson for Meta parent Facebook told the New York Post on Monday.
“As Mark has said publicly, he’s not endorsing anybody in this race and has not communicated to anybody how he intends to vote,” the rep said.
Trump has been a harsh critic of Zuckerberg, who recently acknowledged that the Biden administration pressured his company to censor content related to COVID-19.
Trump has accused Zuckerberg of putting his thumb on the scale to help President Joe Biden win the 2020 election.
Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook was wrong to limit the sharing of a link to The Post’s coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, which at the time was falsely attributed to Russian disinformation.
Meta has also been accused of bias in favoring content promoted by Democrats. Facebook and Instagram were among the social media apps that banned Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 rioting at the US Capitol.
Trump did have kind words for Bezos, saying the billionaire “couldn’t have been nicer” during their phone call, according to New York magazine.
Trump said he told Bezos: “Despite the fact that you own The Washington Post, I appreciate it.”
The Post has sought comment from Bezos.
