Nehlen was banned from Twitter on February 11, 2018, after he posted a photo that replaced Meghan Markle, then-fiancee of Britain's Prince Harry, with a photo of a reconstruction of a dark-skinned prehistoric man nicknamed Cheddar Man. It was captioned, "Honey does this tie make my face look pale?" Markle's mother is black and her father is white. Nehlen defended his tweet, stating in a subtweet, "Publishing an article *disappearing whites* or *dispossessing whites* of their homelands is wrong; made worse when claiming 'science' to 'prove' whites never existed. I made a joke of it. It's not a laughing matter, so I chose to laugh about it." He also published a statement regarding his Twitter ban, that read in part, “ These are unprecedented, brazen acts of censorship by a corporate monopoly that controls a primary channel of public communication. It has severely compromised the integrity of our election processes, and Congress needs to hold public hearings and conduct a full investigation into these matters without delay. This communist-style speech control absolutely cannot be tolerated in an open and democratic society. ” —Paul Nehlen, 2018 Newsweek reported that a Twitter spokesperson confirmed the account suspension, saying "We have permanently suspended this account for repeated violations of our terms of service." Nehlen previously had his account suspended for a week in January 2018 when he tweeted the names and contact information of his critics along with photos of media executives from the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, and others with the Star of David next to the faces of those Nehlen claimed were Jewish or had a Jewish spouse. He captioned the tweets, "Does anything stick out to you?" On February 13, 2018, the Wisconsin Republican Party returned or donated the membership dues Nehlen had paid to the Republican county parties in Kenosha, Walworth, and Racine in 2016 and 2017. Explaining the Wisconsin Republican Party's decision to repay the dues, spokesperson Alec Zimmerman stated, "Paul Nehlen is not a member of the Republican Party of Wisconsin. Nehlen and his ideas have no place in the Republican Party." In response, Nehlen wrote in an email to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "The Republican Party of Wisconsin is not Scott Walker and Robin Vos’ personal cartel, and I will not be lectured to on conservative values by self-righteous prigs who have managed to conserve nothing."