Mick Foley On What Led To Him Taking A Six-Week Twitter Hiatus Earlier This Year

Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman recently sat down with WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley on an episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily where he opened up about his political views. Foley deleted his Twitter account earlier this year, and he explained why he took a hiatus from the platform.

"I got off Twitter for six weeks a while back, and there were two things that did it. It was the death of the young lady (Hana Kimura) in Japan by suicide due to bullying, and the other one was the president retweeted something by the Republican Cowboys," Foley explained. "I have their names written down. Somewhere where the guy said, 'the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat,' and then immediately it was, 'I know they're going to try to take my words out of context,' and I was like, 'no, no, wait. I make a living using words.' Those words are always meant to be taken literally.

"They were from the time of a former Civil War General who was told by a Native American in 1869 that there are some good Indians out there, and the guy said, 'well, the only good Indians I've seen are dead Indians.' And then that got taken into 'the only good Indian is a dead Indian.' You name it. 'The only good Nazi is a dead one.' It's meant to be taken literally, and I thought this guy has set the bar so low for civility that particular retweet didn't even get a considerable amount of attention.

"And I just thought, 'how far have we fallen that a president could retweet that and say, hey see you in New Mexico or see you in November,' and I thought well, he's got 80 million followers. I think as a guy who uses words and has written 11 books and been a pretty effective communicator, even without my bottom teeth, that those words are meant to be taken literally."

Foley continued noting the dangerous ramifications of President Donald Trump spreading violent rhetoric to his millions of followers. He called it a "dangerous situation" when it came to President Trump's lax refusal to denounce white nationalism.

"By hitting retweet, you are endorsing that viewpoint," Foley pointed out. "You can't say you're just putting it out there. When you're the President of the United States and you retweet something, you are endorsing it. So if you got 80 million followers, you just do the math, it's like, okay, what if one in a hundred took you literally about the possibility of killing Democrats?

"Do the math. You've got 800,000 potential people taking that seriously. What if it's one in a thousand? All you need is eight people with rifles, and they can terrorize a nation based on what one guy said. People go, 'hey, aren't you're taking this too far?' I did some studying on Rwanda. They killed 750,000 people with 250,000 machetes, not a single gunshot, and we've got a nation armed to the teeth.

"And we've got a guy fomenting violence, asking white nationalist groups to 'stand back and stand by', using coded language to let them know that you're going to be okay. You can go and say four days later that you condemn white nationalism, but they know. They know as soon as they hear, 'stand back and stand by' that they can do whatever they want, and the president's gonna look the other way. I just think it's a really dangerous situation."

Foley has not been afraid to speak out against President Trump, and he reflected on how he did not voice his political opinions when it came to former president Barack Obama's elections and in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. He said he believes he has to do something saying "things go terribly wrong when good people do nothing."

"I barely chimed in. In 2008, I had something to say," Foley stated. "I was a big Obama supporter. 2012, I stood back. I don't know if I even tweeted about it. I may have once or twice. 2016, I warned people not to do what I think they were about to do, which they did, and this time around, I'm sorry. I've never heard him express a single concern about the environment. I've never heard him talk about global warming. I have never heard him condemn Putin for the possibility that he put bounties on our service members in Afghanistan. I've never heard an expressed concern that Putin's leading rival was poisoned.

"He said he'd look into it. Does anyone really believe he looked into it? No. No, I believe he's compromised. If he's not compromised, he does a good job of acting like somebody who's compromised, and I just thought, again, 20 years from now, if someone asked me what I did, because I do believe we'll be studying this in history, how things went terribly wrong and things go terribly wrong when good people do nothing."

You can follow Mick on Twitter @RealMickFoley or get a personalized video from him on Cameo via Cameo.com/MickFoley. Mick's full interview aired as part of a recent episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here.