Rambling Trump, Musk interview marred by tech issues By Reuters

By Richard Cowan and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sat Monday for a pleasant two-hour interview with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Musk’s social media platform X, after technical issues delayed the beginning of the occasion for greater than 40 minutes.

Musk, who has endorsed Trump, blamed the difficulties on a distributed denial-of-service assault, by which a server or community is flooded with site visitors in an try to shut it down, although his declare couldn’t be verified.

Trump sought to show the issues right into a constructive, congratulating Musk on the variety of folks making an attempt to tune in. A counter on X confirmed as many as 1.3 million folks have been listening at occasions throughout the prolonged dialog.

The technical issues recalled the same occasion on X in Might 2023, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suffered a chaotic begin to his bid for the Republican presidential nomination as a result of glitches on the platform.

On the time, Trump mocked DeSantis on his personal, social media platform, Fact Social. “My Purple Button is larger, higher, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!)” Trump posted, “Yours doesn’t.”

Forward of Monday’s occasion, Musk had written: “Am going to do some system scaling exams tonight & tomorrow upfront of the dialog.” X didn’t reply to requests for particulars or proof of the alleged cyberattack.

The 2 males exchanged reward repeatedly, with the Tesla (NASDAQ:) chief lauding Trump for his bravery throughout the try on his life final month, and Trump congratulating Musk for his willingness to fireside employees demanding higher situations.

“You are the best cutter,” Trump stated. “I imply, I have a look at what you do. You stroll in, you simply say: ‘You need to give up?’ They go on strike – I will not point out the identify of the corporate – however they go on strike. And also you say: ‘That is okay, you are all gone.'”

Musk, the world’s richest individual, introduced his assist for Trump shortly after his tried assassination, regardless of the Republican’s opposition to state assist for electrical carmakers like Tesla. Musk backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 however has tacked rightward since.

“I feel we’re at a fork within the street of future, of civilization, and I feel we have to take the best path, and I feel you are the best path,” he advised Trump because the interview concluded.

The chat with Musk supplied Trump an unfiltered likelihood to air his typical mixture of grievances, private assaults and overstated or false claims.

Musk let Trump lead the dialog and didn’t problem Trump’s inaccurate statements, just like the assertion that different international locations have been sending criminals from their prisons throughout the southern U.S. border, or that bacon costs had risen 4 or 5 occasions.

Research present immigrants, together with these within the U.S. illegally, don’t commit crimes at the next fee than native-born Individuals.

The discuss was Trump’s newest effort to grab the highlight from his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, whose Eleventh-hour entry into the race has galvanized her social gathering and boosted Democratic fundraising.

Harris has dominated headlines with a sequence of high-energy rallies since she changed Biden because the social gathering’s candidate three weeks in the past. Her momentum might get one other enhance from the Democratic Nationwide Conference subsequent week in Chicago.

In an announcement after the interview, a Harris marketing campaign spokesperson, Joseph Costello, stated: “Trump’s total marketing campaign is in service of individuals like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed wealthy guys who will promote out the center class and who can’t run a livestream within the 12 months 2024.”

The previous president sounded at a number of factors as if he had a lisp, one thing many listeners famous on X. The Trump marketing campaign didn’t reply to a request for remark about Trump’s speech.

HARRIS MOMENTUM

Trump insulted Harris a number of occasions, referring to her as “third fee”, “incompetent” and “a radical left lunatic.”

However then he praised her seems.

“She seems like essentially the most lovely actress ever to stay,” Trump stated a couple of image of Harris on the duvet of Time journal. “It was a drawing, and truly, she regarded very very similar to an awesome first girl, Melania,” he added, referring to his spouse Melania Trump.

He additionally expressed anger that Harris had been swapped in for Biden on the Democratic ticket.

“She hasn’t finished an interview since this complete rip-off began,” Trump stated, claiming falsely that Biden dropping off the ticket was a “coup.”

Trump had been main Biden in lots of polls of battleground states prone to be vital to the end result of the Nov. 5 election, however is now trailing Harris in among the similar states.

A longstanding critic of electrical automobiles, Trump has shifted gears since Musk’s endorsement. On Monday, he described the electrical automobiles made by Tesla as “unimaginable.”

He additionally praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese language President Xi Jinping and North Korean chief Kim Jong Un – all authoritarian strongmen – as on the “high of their sport.”

TRUMP BACK ON X

Trump returned to X, previously generally known as Twitter, with a sequence of posts on Monday for the primary time in a 12 months, reviving an account that had served as a fundamental technique of communication in earlier campaigns and his 4 years within the White Home, together with his followers’ Jan. 6 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s entry to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month into Musk’s possession of X after being suspended by the platform’s earlier homeowners following the Jan. 6 assault, citing issues he would incite violence.

Trump often posts on his Fact Social platform, which was launched in February 2022, however his posts there attain a a lot smaller viewers than on X.

Musk, who has echoed Trump’s false claims about voter fraud and Biden’s immigration insurance policies, began an exterior tremendous PAC spending group to assist Trump’s marketing campaign. The political motion committee is now beneath investigation in Michigan for doable violations of state legal guidelines on gathering voter info.