All of the companies that would instantly start losing a billion dollars per second would never allow this to happen. This isn’t some 3rd world country where Google and Apple and Facebook aren’t headquartered. The internet will always be happening here. They’re completely dependent on it and their customer’s constant access to it.

I’m seeing a lot of Newsweek posted here and that is disheartening, to say the least. Newsweek is half a step from the dailymail’s level of bombastic misrepresentation. Continued use of Newsweek as a source is not ideal as a result.

Classic coup move

Quick, hide that internet button so that grandpa can't switch it off!

Miles Taylor, Trump's former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, was asked on MSNBC about what potential damage the former president, who is the frontrunner in the GOP primaries, could do in government without breaking the law.

"The possibilities are almost limitless," Taylor said. "The biggest concerns for me are on the national security side. I think Americans still don't understand the full extent of the president's powers and things Donald Trump could do, bubble-wrapped in legalese, that would be damaging to the republic."

"He could invoke powers we've never heard a President of the United States invoke—potentially to shut down companies or turn off the internet or deploy the U.S. military on U.S. soil," he added. "We don't know because the things that are in there, the emergency powers of the president, aren't widely known to the American people.

I think he is too much of a narcissist to do something that would reduce the amount of attention he could receive.

Also:

https://youtu.be/Vywf48Dhyns?si=4aSVPpOGSIIXhv2I

Will he personally pull the plug off the wall so that ISIS stops being a meanie?

To be clear this is unlikely to be a long term nation wide internet blackout. Rather, e.g., turn off the Internet in a section of a city and send in troops to deal with a protest.

My balls might turn off the internet

Is this enough dictator behavior to call him an aspiring dictator for you yet?

Lol every country on the brink that has tried this has incited their own revolution. When people loose their distraction machines they tend to aim anger in the right direction. I say turn it off.

Good luck.

I'm pretty sure the only way to turn off the internet is remove humans from the ultimate equation. We have a stubborn little habit of maintaining the status quo or ignoring the rules, especially when porn and/or money is on the line.

This is literally just “the president has a lot of emergency powers, these are some of them”

sounds like what he wants to do is block certain countries by ASN or something but doesn't know how to say it properly

He's going to call Bill Gates to do it.

Finally.

Finally a candidate who bases policy around the objectively correct take away from Ready Player One, the most culturally significant sci fi statement on society of our generation.

(/s if that is somehow needed)

I don't think he means it in the way we think. It's more likely he means "turn off" like the sleazy guy at the bar in sweatpants and a stained shirt who hits on all the women. I'd say "mission accomplished" Mr. Trump.

I see a lot of dismissal of this idea here. I think a lot of people think the statement means just arbitrarily turning it off. Maybe it does, he is an incompetent moron. However, if we look at real life historical precident on how countries have disabled internet access in their countries, it usually immediately precedes a coup. So I could see him (or another R in the near future) attempting such a strategy at the end of term in order to seize control and stay in power.