The Guardian

Trump rehashes vitriol and falsehoods in rambling talk with Musk – as it happened

By Helen Sullivan(now) with Chris Stein(earlier),

1 day ago

https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0xMAEo_0uvpQamR00 — Trump with Elon Musk at the White House in February 2017. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

4.30am BST

This blog is closing now – thanks for following along. You can read our full story on the interview here:

4.28am BST

Donald Trump sat down with billionaire Elon Musk on Monday for a rambling and vitriolic interview that revisited many of the former president’s most divisive talking points.

The interview on X, which is owned by Musk, got off to an inauspicious start, with technical issues that initially prevented many users from watching the conversation. Musk blamed the delay on a “massive” cyber-attack, but the cause of the glitch was not entirely clear.

After the interview started more than 40 minutes late, Trump began the conversation by recounting the failed assassination attempt against him last month at Musk’s request. Although Trump previously said he would only share the story once at the Republican convention last month, he again discussed in detail his brush with death at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which he said he would visit again in October.

“It was a miracle. If I hadn’t turned my head, I would not be talking to you right now, as much as I like you,” Trump told Musk.

Trump then pivoted to discussing his usual anti-immigration views, warning about the “rough people” attempting to enter the country through the US-Mexico border.

“These are people that are in jail for murder and all sorts of things, and they’re releasing them into our country,” Trump said. Extensive research has uncovered no link between immigration and higher levels of crime.

Trump proceeded to attack his opponent Kamala Harris as the “border tsar” of the Biden administration, even though Democratic officials and immigrant rights experts have contested that characterization of her policy portfolio. He repeatedly mocked Harris as a “radical” Democrat who had “destroyed” California when she served as the state’s attorney general and later its senator.

And he bizarrely complimented Harris for looking “beautiful” on the cover of Time magazine, comparing her to his wife, Melania, while noting that the image was a sketch.

4.23am BST

Hello, this is Helen Sullivan wrapping up our coverage of that interview.

Let’s take another look at Trump’s claim on the numbers. His campaign Twitter / X account claimed it was the biggest interview in history, which is wrong by tens and tens of millions of viewers / participants.

That interview had around 1.2 million people watching, which is less than the average Fox prime time viewership in May this year.

At one point, Trump tried to claim that 60 million people were watching, and Musk did not correct him, but laughed nervously, and said instead that a hundred million would probably watch the recording.

A few that were much bigger than that interview: Princess Diana and Martin Bashir in 1995, which had at least 28 million.

Or Oprah and Michael Jackson in 1993, which about 90 million people watched worldwide.

Emily Maitlis’s 2019 interview with Prince Andrew was watched by more than two million people.

4.12am BST

After delayed start, Trump and Musk break little ground in lengthy interview

Donald Trump ’s conversation with the world’s richest person, Tesla CEO Elon Musk , was less of an interview and more of a chat between two ideologically aligned men who felt at ease talking for more than two hours before an audience of about a million accounts . After a belated start caused by what Musk said was a cyber-attack , they discussed Trump’s experience after an assassin opened fire at his rally in Pennsylvania, Musk’s views on the climate crisis, and the former president’s take on just about anything . One thing they did not do was break much news. The ex-president stuck to well-worn rhetoric on familiar topics, with little push back from Musk, who has endorsed his presidential campaign.

Here are some highlights:

Trump leveled baseless attacks against migrants, as he often does, describing them as “murderers”.
The former president said that in October, he would return to Butler, the Pennsylvania town where a gunman opened fire on his rally last month.
Musk prodded Trump to establish something called a “government efficiency commission”. The ex-president replied with praise for the Tesla boss’s penchant for laying off workers.
In an attack that you can expect to hear from Republicans a lot in the months to come, Trump decried Kamala Harris as “a San Francisco liberal”.
Harris’s campaign replied that Trump’s “extremism” is a “feature not a glitch of his campaign”.

3.55am BST

Harris campaign heaps scorn on 'whatever that was on X.com'

Now that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are off the air, Kamala Harris campaign spokesman Joseph Costello had this to say about their interview:

Donald Trump’s extremism and dangerous Project 2025 agenda is a feature not a glitch of his campaign, which was on full display for those unlucky enough to listen in tonight during whatever that was on X.com. Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024.

3.51am BST

Trump concludes interview with Musk

After just over two hours, Donald Trump has wrapped up his interview with Elon Musk .

The conversation was wide-ranging and often rambling, with the former president and the Tesla CEO expressing their admiration for each other and discussing their political views. Trump repeatedly exaggerated various ills the country faced, as well as his record as president, while also attacking Kamala Harris and Joe Biden .

The interview’s scheduled start time was delayed by about 40 minutes due to what Musk said was a cyber-attack on X. There were no further technical glitches once the conversation started.

3.40am BST

Conservative accounts are circulating these photos, saying it’s Trump talking with Elon Musk on X:

Updated at 3.40am BST

3.33am BST

Are they wrapping up? It’s been nearly two hours, and the conversation seems to be heading in that direction.

The two men are trading compliments, with Musk saying to Trump: “Here’s to an exciting, inspiring future that people can look forward to and be optimistic and excited about what happens next. And that’s the kind of future that I think you will bring as president. And that’s why I endorse you.”

To which Trump replied: “Well, I appreciate that. That endorsement meant a lot to me. Not all endorsements mean that much. To be honest, your endorsement meant a lot.”

One wonders what endorsements Trump doesn’t think much of.

3.29am BST

There are more than a million people listening in to Trump’s interview with Musk, according to X’s counter.

The number caught the attention of the former president: “I’m looking at the numbers, you get a lot of people listening. I hope you don’t get nervous, because you got a lot of people listening to you right now.”

There was a brief pause as Trump seemed to read the number of people listening in. He then remarked: “I congratulate you. Do I get paid for this or not?”

Trump seemed to imply that the listener count was up to 70m, but that’s much higher than what X’s counter shows.

3.15am BST

Trump condemns Harris as 'a San Francisco liberal'

In an attack that you can expect to hear repeated by Republicans quite a lot over the next three months, Donald Trump assailed Kamala Harris as “a San Francisco liberal” who “destroyed” California.

“She’s going to be worse than him,” Trump said, referring to Joe Biden .

“She is a San Francisco liberal who destroyed San Francisco, and then as attorney general, she destroyed California,” he then said of Harris, who was the city’s district attorney before becoming the state’s prosecutor.

But, as he often does, the former president overreached, implying that the sun shined over the famously sunny state no longer. “We’re talking about the sun. There’s nothing better than California. She has destroyed that,” Trump said.

3.03am BST

Fact checks: the economy and Covid

Trump returned to many of his favorite lies about the economy while he was president, claiming he had the “best economy ever, maybe in the world”. That’s a complicated claim to fact check, because it is simply so broad. But to start – GDP growth was so-so under Trump, though unemployment was low. Even before the pandemic, when the economy was generally good – it was far from the most booming time in US history, let alone in the world …

Trump blamed the Covid pandemic on China. There is still no determination on the origins of the pandemic.

Updated at 3.05am BST

3.00am BST

Musk and Trump are now discussing the climate crisis, with the Tesla CEO saying his views on the subject are “moderate in this regard”.

Musk, who credits much of his wealth to the success of his electric car company, argues that fossil fuels are still essential for prosperity, but warns that their supplies are finite, and that atmospheric carbon dioxide poses its own risk.

Trump replied by telling Musk that he fossil fuel-generated electricity powers the factories that produce his Teslas: “I’ve heard in terms of the fossil fuel, because even to create your electric car and create the electricity needed for the electric car, you know, fossil fuel is what really creates that at the generating plants … so you sort of can’t get away from it at this moment.”

2.47am BST

Trump mentioned AI – and the amount of energy it requires. And he was kind of right.

As companies seek to build out AI technologies, the US will “need a lot of tremendous electricity, like almost double what we produce now for the whole country, if you can believe it”, Trump said.

Indeed, the new computing infrastructure needed to power tech companies’ ramping up of AI technologies will eat up a lot of energy.

As my colleagues reported last month, Google admitted that its data centers, a key piece of AI infrastructure, had helped increase its greenhouse gas emissions by 48% since 2019. Because AI programs are so complex, they require more energy than other forms of computing. It’s hard to nail down exactly how much.

Updated at 2.50am BST

2.44am BST

The conversation took a chummy turn after Musk brought up establishing something called a “government efficiency commission”.

The Tesla CEO is clearly among the ranks of those who think that Washington overspends and under-delivers, and has gently prodded Trump to do something about that, if re-elected.

“I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that takes a look at these things and just ensures that the taxpayer money, the taxpayers’ hard earned money, is spent in a good way. And I’d be happy to help out on such a commission,” Musk said.

“I’d love it for you. You’re the greatest cutter,” Trump replied, in an apparent reference to Musk’s penchant for pushing out staff at companies he’s taken over, including X .

Updated at 2.47am BST

2.33am BST

Trump is hopping from topic to topic, without much pushback from Musk.

One minute, Trump is talking about national security:

If you’re a history student, the first thing you learn is you cannot let Russia and China align. But then they also got, if you take a look, Iran, and they have North Korea … they call it the Axis of Evil . In the old days, you had the Axis of Evil. Here, we have a modern day Axis of Evil. These are powerful countries.

Next he’s downplaying the severity of the climate crisis and dismissing Joe Biden :

The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years … you’ll have more ocean front property, right? The biggest threat is not that. The biggest threat is nuclear warming, because we have five countries now that have significant nuclear power, and we have to not allow anything to happen with stupid people like Biden.

And then back to national security, specifically Russia and his much-repeated assertion that he could have stopped its invasion of Ukraine:

You know, Russia defeated Germany with us, and they defeated Napoleon. You know, they’ve been around a long time. They’re a big fighting force and it’s very unfair. And Ukraine now doesn’t have enough men, they’re now using young men and very old men to fight, and … we’re in a very bad position. And I’m not going to blame, exclusively, but I can tell you, I could have stopped that, and a smart president could have stopped that.

Updated at 2.39am BST

2.25am BST

Musk blamed the technical difficulties X faced today on a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack – a kind of hack in which bad actors deliberately and maliciously flood a website with traffic to overwhelm its servers and affect its performance.

It can be difficult to distinguish between a malicious DDoS attack and more routine outages, including those caused by an influx of legitimate traffic. Musk and Trump attributed the outage to both of these reasons, respectively, with Musk saying it was a result of a targeted attack and Trump congratulating Musk on “[breaking] every record in the book with so many millions of people” on the live interview.

The X meltdown resembles the series of technical difficulties that occurred when Ron DeSantis announced his presidential campaign on the platform in 2023, which Musk did not blame on a deliberate attack. Many experts instead attributed that failure to the infrastructure of the platform, which has struggled after Musk laid off a number of staffers and closed multiple data centers.

Updated at 2.36am BST

2.21am BST

Fact check: Kamala Harris’s immigration record

Trump once again criticized Harris on border issues, claiming she was a “border czar” and “in charge” of the border – and that she oversaw a surge of unauthorized crossings.

That’s misleading. Harris was never a “border czar”. She was tasked with addressing the “root causes” of migration from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. This was essentially a diplomatic assignment – the idea was to coordinate with those countries and see if investment and aid would help them address the poverty and security issues that were driving so many citizens to flee to the US.

Harris was not directly responsible for border policy.

2.19am BST

Donald Trump, at the prodding of Elon Musk, has spent the last few minutes complaining about undocumented migrants in terms that verge on dehumanizing.

“Elon, what’s happened is unbelievable. You have from Africa, from the Congo. They’re coming from the Congo and 22 people came in from the Congo recently, and they’re murderers,” Trump said.

He went on to claim that “they” – he did not say who this might be – “take them out of jails, prisons, they take them out and they bring them to the United States. They deposit them in the United States and say, don’t ever come back, or you’re going to be executed.”

This is all well-trod territory for the former president, who has made baseless warnings of the danger of immigrants and vows to crack down on undocumented border crossers key planks of his platform.

Updated at 2.22am BST

2.12am BST

Elon Musk, who blamed a cyber-attack for the glitches on his platform tonight, has a history of ducking blame for problems at his companies.

Musk’s Tesla blamed drivers for a number of failures in its cars – including axels failing, suspensions breaking and wheels falling off brand new vehicles – despite records showing that the company had documented flaws .

2.09am BST

Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has used its account on Truth Social, the platform owned by Donald Trump, to highlight his past comments about the meltdown that took place on X during Ron DeSantis’ campaign launch last year.

DeSantis launched his presidential campaign with an interview on X that was riddled with technical errors, mirroring the issues tonight. At the time, Trump mocked DeSantis over the botched rollout.

“Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!” Trump wrote in a post shared last May.

The Harris campaign just reshared (or “reTruthed”) Trump’s post from last year.

Updated at 2.12am BST

2.03am BST

Trump says he will 'go back' to site of assassination attempt in October

Donald Trump says he will ‘go back’ to Butler, the Pennsylvania town where an assassin opened fire at his outdoor rally last month, killing an attendee, wounding the former president in the ear and injuring others.

“By the way, we’re going back to Butler, and we’re gonna go back in October. We’re all set up, and … the people are fantastic in Butler,” Trump said.

Updated at 2.13am BST

1.59am BST

Trump breaks promise not to talk about assassination attempt again

Donald Trump ’s first public speech following the assassination attempt in July was at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, where he told the crowd about his close call – but said he would do so only that one time.

Consider that promise broken, since Trump is telling Elon Musk at length about the shooting at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “It was a miracle. If I hadn’t turned my head, I would not be talking to you right now, as much as I like you,” Trump told Musk.

Here’s a look back at Trump’s speech to the Republican convention, which went on much longer than planned and saw the former president begin with a note of unity, before reverting back to the personal attacks for which he is so well known:

Updated at 2.01am BST

1.51am BST

It is worth noting that X had laid off much of its workforce, including its engineers, after Musk took over the company.

By early 2023, Musk had cut the company’s personnel by about 80%. This included layoffs and resignations after Musk asked employees to “pledge” and commit to “hardcore” work.

The company had about 7,500 employees before Musk took over in 2022. By February 2023, the headcount was down to about 1,300, including about 550 engineers, according to CNBC.

Updated at 1.55am BST

1.49am BST

Musk begins by asking Trump to recount the assassination attempt against him last month.

The former president talks about how the bullet nicked his ear and how much blood flowed from the wound.

“I didn’t know I had that much blood. The doctors later told me that the ear is a place, that is a very bloody place, if you’re going to get hit. But in this case, it was probably the best alternative you could even think about, because it went at the right angle,” Trump said.

Updated at 1.54am BST

1.47am BST

Musk says 'massive attack' illustrates opposition to Trump

Continuing on, Elon Musk drew a link between the cyber-attack that he says X suffered and opposition to Donald Trump ’s candidacy.

“As this … massive attack illustrates there’s a lot of opposition to people just hearing what president Trump has to say, and so but I’m honored to have this conversation,” Musk said.

As for why he sought out the interview, Musk said: “It’s really intended to just get a feel for what Donald Trump is just like in a conversation … it’s hard to catch a vibe about someone if you just don’t hear them talk in a normal way.”

Updated at 1.48am BST

1.44am BST

Musk says X has 'overcome' cyber-attack, interview will proceed

After a delay of more than 40 minutes, Elon Musk is now speaking, and says X has overcome a cyber-attack and that his interview with Donald Trump will now take place.

“My apologies for the late start. We unfortunately had a massive, distributed denial of service attack against our servers and saturated … all of our data lines, like basically hundreds of gigabits of data were saturated,” Musk said.

“We think we’ve overcome most of that, and so it’s now time to proceed.”

Updated at 1.47am BST

1.41am BST

The hold music has now stopped and been replaced by … nothing.

There are more than 135,000 people in the Space where Donald Trump and Elon Musk are supposed to be having an interview, but it is now completely silent and X indicates both men have their microphones muted.

Updated at 1.43am BST

1.35am BST

Here’s the latest from Musk on how this interview is going to get back on track:

Meanwhile, the Guardian’s US politics live blog has managed to get into the Space where the interview is being held, but hears only some Muzakesque hold tunes.

1.31am BST

Needless to say, Democrats are pleased with this turn of events.

Here’s a spokesperson for Kamala Harris ’s campaign:

Updated at 1.33am BST

1.30am BST

Hi there, this is another resident Guardian reporter, Helen Sullivan. I appear to have been let into the space, and am currently hearing spacey elevator holding music.

A lot of people are replying to the Spaces link on Trump’s page saying they hear the same or can’t get in.

So far, I haven’t seen anyone saying that it has started, so that seems to be what everyone who is in is hearing.

The number of people in the space dropped by about 7,000 over the course of the last few minutes, to around 193,000 – unclear if this was because of technical issues or people giving up on waiting.

Updated at 4.14am BST

1.27am BST

Elon Musk went on to say that he tested X earlier today and it worked just fine:

1.22am BST

Musk says X suffering from 'massive DDOS attack'

Elon Musk says X is suffering from “a massive DDOS attack” that he implies has delayed the broadcast of his interview with Donald Trump on the platform:

DDOS stands for distributed denial of service and occurs when a site is flooded with traffic in an effort to make it inaccessible.

Updated at 1.31am BST

1.18am BST

Just minutes ago, the Trump campaign described his talk with Elon Musk as “the biggest interview in history”:

Tis a bummer that no one seem to be able to hear it.

1.14am BST

Perhaps wary of a repeat of the debacle that marred the launch of Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, Elon Musk yesterday said he would be getting X’s systems ready for his interview with Donald Trump:

Whatever he did does not seem to have worked, since we still are not able to listen in to Musk and Trump’s conversation.

1.11am BST

In addition to this live blogger, conservative commentator Glenn Beck is among those unable to listen to Donald Trump’s interview with Elon Musk:

1.07am BST

Technical difficulties mar Trump's interview with Elon Musk on X

The interview was supposed to start five minutes ago, but instead, all we are seeing is a gray box with the words “Details not available”.

It’s reminiscent of what happened last year, when Florida governor Ron DeSantis used X’s Spaces feature to launch his presidential campaign, but the technology was not up to the job:

Updated at 1.20am BST

1.00am BST

Donald Trump has posted what appears to be a link to where he will be broadcasting his interview with Elon Musk.

They are making use of X’s Spaces feature, but it doesn’t seem to be working yet:

12.47am BST

Elsewhere on X, Kamala Harris’s campaign is drawing attention to statements Elon Musk made just two years ago, where he said Donald Trump is too old for another term in office:

In the same tweet, Musk said Florida governor Ron DeSantis would be a better opponent against Joe Biden :

He also said Trump should “hang up his hat”:

Updated at 12.54am BST

12.30am BST

Elon Musk’s purchase of X, then called Twitter, two years ago sparked concerns that he could turn the social media platform into a hotspot for misinformation – which is what he has done, the Guardian’s Rachel Leingang reports:

When Elon Musk took over as owner of Twitter, researchers and elections officials feared a rampant spread of misinformation that would lead to threats and harassment and undermine democracy.

Their fears came true – and Musk himself has emerged as one of its main drivers.

The tech billionaire has cast doubt on machines that tabulate votes and mail ballots, both common features of US elections. He has repeatedly claimed there is rampant non-citizen voting, a frequent Republican talking point in this election.

Musk, the ultra-wealthy owner of Tesla and other tech companies, is scheduled to interview Donald Trump on Monday, where they are sure to find common ground on these election conspiracy theories. Musk is a vocal supporter of the former US president and current Republican nominee. He has restored the Twitter/X accounts of people banned under previous ownership, dismantling the platform’s fact-checking and safety features. Trump’s X account, which was suspended after the January 6 insurrection, was restored as well, though Trump has not returned actively to the platform.

“Electronic voting machines and anything mailed in is too risky. We should mandate paper ballots and in-person voting only,” he wrote on X in July.

Read the full story here:

Updated at 12.32am BST

12.11am BST

Elon Musk’s endorsement of Donald Trump has spurred the former president to rethink his views on electric vehicles, which have lately become targets of the political right. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Oliver Milman :

Donald Trump has for months denigrated electric vehicles, arguing their supporters should “rot in hell” and that assisting the nascent industry is “lunacy”. He now appears to have somewhat shifted his view thanks to the support of Elon Musk, the world’s richest person.

“I’m for electric cars, I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly,” Trump, the Republican nominee for US president, told supporters at a rally in Atlanta , Georgia, on Saturday.

The transactional nature of this relationship with Musk was made clear by the former president and convicted business fraudster, however. “So I have no choice,” said Trump, who then went on to say that electric vehicles were suitable for a “small slice” of the population and that “you want every type of car imaginable” to be available.

Trump also claimed that $9tn would be needed to build a network of electric car chargers, which is not a figure that has been cited by the industry or White House. Joe Biden’s administration has vowed to build 500,000 chargers, far fewer than the approximately 28m needed , and secured several billion dollars for this, although progress on this buildout has been painfully slow .

Read the full story here:

Updated at 12.13am BST

11.52pm BST

FBI says it is investigating leak of Donald Trump campaign documents

In a brief statement released Monday, the FBI confirmed it is investigating the Donald Trump campaign documents that were leaked to reporters in recent weeks after an alleged hack.

The campaign has blamed the leak on “foreign sources hostile to the United States” saying its systems were accessed by hackers working for Iran.

The FBI, which stated as recently as Saturday that it was only aware of media reports on the alleged hack, said Monday: “We can confirm the FBI is investigating this matter.”

The hacked documents included internal campaign communications and a 271-page dossier vetting Trump’s vice-presidential pick JD Vance .

Two Democratic lawmakers on Monday called for more transparency around the alleged hack, including California congressman Eric Swalwell , who tweeted that he was seeking a briefing on the breach:

Democratic congressman Adam Schiff of California stated that the US intelligence community “moved much too slow to properly identify the hacking and dumping scheme carried out by Russia” in 2016 and “should act quickly here”, urging the Department of Homeland Security officials to declassify information on the foreign nature of the hack.

How to listen to Donald Trump's interview with Elon Musk

Donald Trump is scheduled to be interviewed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk on X’s Spaces feature, which hosts live conservations between users.

The conversation is scheduled for 8pm ET:

Musk did not mention how long it will go on for, but did say this:

Updated at 11.22pm BST

11.06pm BST

Trump set for Musk interview as he seeks to revitalize campaign

Good evening, US politics blog readers, and thanks for joining us as we cover Donald Trump ’s interview with Elon Musk , the Tesla boss who has lately put his massive wealth to work in support of Trump’s bid to return to the White House. Their interview is scheduled for 8pm ET on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter which Musk bought two years ago, and has since turned into a haven for rightwing misinformation.

We’ll tell you more about Trump’s long relationship with X, but first let’s talk about the moment in which this interview is taking place. We’re less than three months out from the 5 November presidential election, and the Trump campaign has been thrown for a loop by Joe Biden ’s decision not to seek a second term, and hand the reins to his vice-president Kamala Harris . Polls of voters taken since the Democrat stepped aside in late July have shown Harris pulling ahead of Trump both nationally and in several crucial swing states, and the former president has appeared unsure of just how to regain the momentum that he seemed to have when Biden was the Democratic standard-bearer.

This evening’s interview will offer Trump the opportunity to do that in an arena he knows well. During his successful campaign in 2016 and almost the entirety of his presidency, Trump used X to do everything from condemning his rivals to announcing policies, until the company’s leaders banned him in the wake of the January 6 attack. Musk reinstated Trump’s account after he bought the platform, but the former president posted only once – until today, when he made eight posts, most of which are campaign videos. We’ll see if he continues to make use of X in the weeks to come.

Here’s what else we will be watching out for:

Will Musk make any promises to Trump? He’s the world’s richest man, and his money could help the ex-president close the messaging gap with Harris, who has been raking it in ever since she replaced Biden atop the Democratic ticket.
What will Trump say about Harris? Some of the former president’s attacks against the vice-president seem to have backfired, such as when he implied that she was not actually Black.
Will Musk push back on any of Trump’s falsehoods? The former president has a tendency to lie, distort and exaggerate, and often clashes with interviewers who challenge him on his facts. We’ll see if Musk follows suit, or lets him talk.