Elon Musk town hall will intensify his pro-Trump efforts in Pennsylvania

Standing in all black earlier than a big American flag, Elon Musk — the world’s richest man — visited a Delaware County highschool Thursday to stump for Donald Trump’s marketing campaign and warn about crime and immigration.

Musk began talking at Ridley Excessive College in Folsom greater than an hour after he was scheduled to, and delivered temporary and fear-stoking remarks about avenue crime — particularly close to the campus of his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania — and unlawful immigration.

He walked onto stage to thunderous applause from the group, dotted with purple Trump “MAGA” hats, and plenty of in attendance shouted cheers of encouragement — and, at one second, an expletive about Vice President Kamala Harris — in the course of the billionaire tech govt’s remarks.

In an look that lasted somewhat over an hour, Musk painted an apocalyptic portrait of American life if Trump shouldn’t be elected. He lambasted President Joe Biden’s administration and its dealing with of the immigration disaster and the southern U.S. border, and solid himself as a defender of the Structure.

The go to was the primary in a collection of town halls Musk is holding throughout Pennsylvania by way of Monday. He’ll have a town hall in Montgomery County on Friday because the concentrate on the populous collar counties ramps up in the ultimate weeks of the marketing campaign.

Late in the presidential marketing campaign season, Musk has emerged as a serious backer of Trump’s marketing campaign, donating almost $75 million to his personal America PAC, which fuels Trump voter mobilization efforts.

The occasion had some hometown enchantment.

Talking to his private connection to Pennsylvania, Musk informed the viewers that he had spent three years in Philadelphia throughout his time attending the College of Pennsylvania’s Wharton College in the late Nineteen Nineties and that he “knew Pennsylvania effectively.”

“I lived in the town for 3 years, I went to highschool right here,” Musk stated. “I do know the state — I’m not some simply arrived scenario.”

Delco residents lined up outdoors Ridley Excessive College hours earlier than Musk’s arrival.

As faculty set free, highschool college students buzzed in regards to the look; outdoors the doorway, some younger male college students goaded each other with laughter as they waved Trump-Vance flags.

Elizabeth Chartier, 28, a registered Republican who plans to vote for Harris in November however needed to attend the occasion to listen to Musk firsthand, stated she’s not satisfied Musk — who has a web price of almost $250 billion — will resonate with on a regular basis Pennsylvania voters.

“I really feel like the most important factor is like the center class and their woes, and Elon is thus far faraway from the middle-class expertise in life,” stated Chartier, of Ridley Park. “I don’t know. Until he’s acquired a extremely good PR staff to inform him what issues middle-class individuals wish to hear, I nonetheless assume it’ll come off disingenuous.”

Musk later blamed Democratic insurance policies for Mad Max-style crime in the nation’s main cities, and informed viewers members that their energy can be drastically diminished if the federal government enacted gun-control measures. He railed towards mounting spending inside the federal authorities and the felony justice system.

“The scenario we now have right here is that the Democratic Social gathering will not put hardened criminals in jail, and they also run free and so they prey upon you and your youngsters,” Musk stated.

“The Second Modification is there to guard the First Modification,” Musk later added.

And to the X CEO, these viewpoints, he stated, are simply “widespread sense.”

His pro-Trump voter mobilization message forward of Monday’s registration deadline accompanied disinformation and conspiracy theories about U.S. elections. Musk expressed his advocacy for paper ballots and the hand-counting of votes.

Musk later addressed a number of questions on his proposed “Department of Governmental Efficiency” — or D.O.G.E, a winking reference to the much-memed cryptocurrency Dogecoin.

The tech govt has recommended that he would assist audit the federal authorities underneath a second Trump administration to remove wasteful spending, and known as for curbing federal laws on companies. Musk has teased his D.O.G.E idea on X in latest weeks, and the concept has earned reward in some on-line Trump circles.

“In the event that they waste your cash … they need to be fired,” Musk stated of federal officers.

To even take part in Thursday’s town hall, members of the general public needed to be registered to vote and signal a petition that, in half, pledges their allegiance to the First and Second Modification.

The sign-up requirement raised some purple flags, although. It was “possible unlawful” as a result of in a federal election, an individual can not give one thing of worth in alternate for an settlement to vote, wrote Richard Hasen, professor of regulation and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Mission on the UCLA College of Legislation, in a post on the Election Law Blog.

“It’s not essential to supply that an individual vote for or towards a specific candidate. … Similar to one can not give out free ice cream or automotive washes or live performance tickets, one can not give out free admission to listen to a speech by a tech entrepreneur,” he wrote.

Hasen’s evaluation was primarily based on one in every of Musk’s posts on X the place he stated attendees must have voted in Pennsylvania to be granted occasion entry. The final attendee sign-up sheet doesn’t point out that individuals should have voted, however that they’re registered to vote.

“It’s inconsistent with what Musk wrote in his tweet, however one can not present a profit for somebody to register to vote both,” Hasen stated in an announcement to The Inquirer.