Donald Trump interview with Elon Musk coming to X following campaign stumbles
WASHINGTON - As Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump tries to figure out how to run against surging Vice President Kamala Harris, he turns Monday to a unique venue: An interview on X with prominent supporter Elon Musk.
To mark the occasion, Trump for the first time in nearly a year posted a flurry of campaign-related items on the Musk-owned social media site X, formerly known as Twitter. He started with a two-and-a-half minute video that celebrated Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election, attacked all the criminal indictments lodged against him in 2023, and repeated his pledge to "totally obliterate the deep state."
As for his Monday night sit-down with Musk, Trump tweeted simply: "Enjoy!"
Also on X, Musk said of the Trump interview: "Entertainment guaranteed."
Vying against Harris
Trump speaks with Musk after weeks in which Harris erased the poll lead the former president had enjoyed over President Joe Biden before he withdrew from the race.
In response, Trump has employed a variety of tactics to try and win back attention.
He has spread lies about Harris' crowd sizes, claimed (without evidence) that former San Francisco mayor and prominent Harris backer Willie Brown has criticized the vice president, conducted a rambling news conference at Mar-a-Lago, and, on Monday, threatened to sue the Justice Department over the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago home for pilfered documents.
Trump and Musk
In many ways, the X Spaces interview is a continuation of Trump's habit of granting interviews to friendly media. The social media site has tended to trend in a more conservative direction since Musk bought Twitter in 2022.
Trump and Musk, meanwhile, have had a complicated relationship.
The former president long solicited Musk's support - and money - but the electric car magnate held off on a formal endorsement until July.
Around the same time, news reports indicated that Musk was prepared to spend around $45 million a month on a pro-Trump political action committee; Musk denied those reports.
The feeling has been mutual. During a recent rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., Trump said of Musk: "We have to make life good for our smart people and he’s as smart as you get.”
This is not the first time Musk has weighed in on the presidential election. He sponsored a 2023 X interview in which Trump Republican rival Ron DeSantis announced his presidential candidacy - an event marred by technical difficulties.
Also, in expressing support for DeSantis back in 2022, Musk suggested that Trump shouldn't run again because of an issue that now hangs over the 2024 campaign: His age.
"Trump would be 82 at end of term, which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America," Musk said on X in July 2022. "If DeSantis runs against Biden in 2024, then DeSantis will easily win - he doesn’t even need to campaign."
Flailing attack lines
The Musk interview takes place as Trump tries a number of ways to get attention, some of them .... unusual.
On Sunday, Trump amplified a debunked conspiracy theory that Harris used AI to portray a big crowd at a recent airport rally, prompting Harris supporters to again question the former president's mental health.
In his post, Trump falsely claimed “there was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it," even though thousands of people attended the event.
David Plouffe, former campaign guru for President Barack Obama and now an adviser to Harris, said on X: “These are not conspiratorial rantings from the deepest recesses of the internet. The author could have the nuclear codes and be responsible for decisions that will affect us all for decades.”
During his news conference last week at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said he was in a near-helicopter crash with Brown, and that the former mayor criticized Harris during their discussion.
Brown, a long-time supporter of Harris - the two once had a romantic relationship back in the day - said none of this ever happened.
A rising number of Republicans have questioned Trump's campaign of late, and said he needs to focus on Harris' policies, not personality.
In an interview Monday on Fox News, former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said to Trump: "Stop questioning the size of her crowds."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump and Musk's on-again-off-again saga gets a surprising development
