On Saturday, former President Donald Trump joined the social media platform TikTok. Less than 24 hours later, he had surpassed the amount of followers for President Joe Biden’s campaign.
According to The Hill, Trump’s first TikTok video featured Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White at a UFC title fight in New Jersey.
“The President is now on TikTok,” White said.
“It’s my honor,” Trump added.
The rest of the video featured clips of Trump at the fight.
🚨 BREAKING: Trump has joined TikTok
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 2, 2024
Here is his first post: pic.twitter.com/oAEdawHBvV
Reportedly, the video garnered millions of likes and views within hours. And, Trump’s account gained more followers than the Biden-Harris account, which began months ago (via The Hill):
The video amassed more than 2.3 million likes and 38 million views in less than 15 hours as of Sunday at 2 p.m. Trump’s account gained more than 2.2 million followers — more than six times the followers of the Biden-Harris HQ account, which was started in February.
Trump joined the social media platform days after he was found guilty on 34 felony counts in his New York "hush money" trial.
In 2023, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) charged Trump with 34 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.
As Katie noted, Bragg's team didn't focus on proving the fraud charges. Instead, prosecutors honed in on "hush money payments" and focused on irrelevant details of an alleged affair.
The trial lasted roughly six weeks. This week, the jury deliberated for a total of 9.5 hours over the course of two days before reaching a verdict.