Donald Trump has reportedly pulled the plug on his blog after a mere month.
The “From the desk of Donald J. Trump” section of his website represented the former president’s attempt to communicate with supporters after he was banned from Facebook and Twitter. But on Wednesday, CNBC reported that the page has been shut down for good.
“It was just auxiliary to the broader efforts we have and are working on,” Jason Miller, a senior aide to Trump, told CNBC without elaborating.
The page previously hosted dozens of tweet-like posts from Trump going back several months. But as of Wednesday, the URL for the site was instead redirecting users to sign up for email updates from the former president.
Why the blog was shut down remains unclear. However, visitors to the page were relatively low. The Washington Post reviewed website traffic data from four online analytics firms and found both the blog and Trump’s personal website received fewer estimated visitors than the pet-adoption service Petfinder and the recipe site Delish.
The blog also struggled to gain visibility on other social media platforms. On average, it was shared on Facebook fewer than 2,000 times a day, which is down from the millions of page views and likes Trump could receive on his own Facebook page before he was indefinitely suspended from the social network.
In response to a tweet questioning whether the blog shutdown is "a precursor to [Trump] joining another social media platform," Miller this morning said "Yes, actually, it is. Stay tuned!" Miller has teased a return to social media for Trump for several months, but thus far, the "Desk" section of Trump's website is the only thing that has materialized.
Conservative-friendly social network Parler previously recruited Trump to post exclusively to the site, but a deal was never finalized, according to BuzzFeed.