Trump reps told Parler he'd become an active member of the platform if it barred his critics, but it refused, book says
Trump was prepared to join the social-media site Parler if it barred his critics, a new book says.
His reps told Parler he could become an active user, an excerpt from the upcoming book adds.
Parler, popular with the far-right, balked at the idea of barring Trump's critics, the book says.
Former President Donald Trump was prepared to become an active user of the social-media site Parler if it barred his critics - but it resisted doing so, according to an excerpt from an upcoming Michael Wolff book.
In an excerpt from "Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency," published in New York magazine on Monday, Wolff writes that Trump's representatives approached Parler when Trump was in office and proposed that he join the platform once he left the White House.
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Parler is a website that was popular with Trump supporters around the time of the Capitol riot on January 6, in part because of its lack of content moderation.
"They had floated a proposition that Trump, after he left office, become an active member of Parler, moving much of his social-media activity there from Twitter," Wolff wrote.
Under their proposal, Trump would receive 40% of Parler's gross revenues, and Parler "would ban anyone who spoke negatively about him," Wolff wrote.
"Parler was balking only at this last condition," he wrote.
The 40% figure has been previously reported.
Trump never became an active member of Parler. Twitter and Facebook blocked Trump after the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, citing "the risk of further incitement of violence."
Parler did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Trump considered joining Parler under the pseudonym "Person X," its former CEO, John Matze, said in a court filing in January. Matze, ousted as CEO earlier this year, said Amazon Web Services knew about these plans while it hosted Parler. It terminated its contract with Parler - essentially knocking the site offline - to prevent Trump from having any social-media presence, Matze said.
At the time, Amazon said "suspending Parler had nothing to do with politics." It suspended the site because Parler was "unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence," it said.
After the Capitol riot, Apple and Google removed Parler from their app stores. Parler came back online in February with a new web host and a new CEO.
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