Trump invokes one of Winston Churchill's WWII speeches in his lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, and other tech companies
- Former President Donald Trump sent an email to his followers reminiscent of Winston Churchill's wartime speech.
- "We'll fight in the courts, we'll fight in the legislatures, and we'll fight at the ballot boxes," read the email.
- Trump filed class-action lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, and Google, as well as their top executives.
Former President Donald Trump took the opportunity in a campaign email about his lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter, and Google to invoke the spirit of wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
In an email sent late on Wednesday night titled "I'm taking on Big Tech," Trump sent his supporters a rallying call to action. The twist - it was worded in a similar way to Churchill's famous World War II speech, known as "We shall fight on the beaches."
"Today, my team and I announced our plan to Take On Big Tech. We are SUING the big tech tyrants: Facebook, Twitter & Google," wrote Trump in a campaign email sent on Wednesday night.
"This lawsuit is just the beginning and just one part of a bigger fight. This suit isn't the whole battle: it's an opening shot," Trump wrote.
"We'll fight in the courts, we'll fight in the legislatures, and we'll fight at the ballot boxes until the American people have their rights and sovereignty restored," the former president continued.
The original Churchill speech read a little differently.
"We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be," said Churchill to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940. "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
Trump announced at a press conference on Wednesday that he is filing class-action lawsuits against multiple major US tech companies and their top executives. Facebook, Google, Twitter, and their leaders Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pichai, are all on Trump's list for what he alleges is censorship and anti-conservative bias.
"We're demanding an end to the shadow banning, a stop to the silencing, a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and canceling that you know so well," Trump said on Wednesday.
The lawsuits escalate an ongoing tussle between the former president and social media platforms after they suspended him following the January 6 Capitol riot.
Twitter has upheld an indefinite ban on Trump, maintaining that they will continue to keep him off the platform even if he runs in 2024. Meanwhile, Trump's Facebook and Instagram suspension will last until at least 2023.
After the ban, Trump has experimented, albeit unsuccessfully, with multiple outreach platforms. This included a blog, "From the Desk of Donald J. Trump," which was shut down a month after he launched it. A new Twitter-like social media platform, GETTR, was launched by former Trump aide Jason Miller, but the former president does not currently have an account on the platform.
The former president has wasted no time, and fundraising for the lawsuits has kicked off. Insider's Jake Lahut wrote on Thursday that Trump's campaign sent out fundraising emails minutes after his speech.