Musk tries to help Trump halt the Harris surge

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

(CNN) — The world’s richest man and its once-and-possibly future most powerful man agreed on almost everything.

Tech titan Elon Musk threw open his X platform on Monday night, offering Donald Trump a pipeline free of fact checks for his falsehoods, conspiracy theories and extremism as he tries to slow the rise of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

The chat represented yet another extraordinary chapter in a presidential campaign that has defied logic with its stunning twists in recent weeks, including an assassination attempt against Trump and President Joe Biden’s ending of his reelection bid.

The former president has been floundering – struggling to cope with the soaring start by the new Democratic nominee. At times, during their expansive chat, Musk seemed to be using the power of his profile and platform to coach Trump on how to mount a better argument against Harris.

“She’s a believer in being radical left,” Trump said at one point of a Democratic foe who has erased his polling advantage in only three weeks as a candidate. And the former president, who attempted to overturn an election he lost, baselessly claimed that Biden had been illegally ousted to make way for Harris. “She hasn’t done an interview since this whole scam started, and say what you want, this was a coup. This was a coup of a president of the United States,” Trump fumed.

Musk agreed with Trump that Harris was a radical leftist and flattered his guest by implying that he was strong and his Democratic opponents were weak. He referred to America’s enemies and said, “Do they fear the American president, or is it someone they do not respect and do not fear? Let’s look at the footage of the assassination. Like, okay, you know, President Trump is like, don’t mess with me.”

Musk has already endorsed Trump, and he was leaving no doubt on Monday night that he wants to see him win a second term. “You are the path to prosperity. And I think Kamala is the opposite,” he told Trump.

Musk, who has huge business interests in securing favorable treatment from the next administration, provided the Republican nominee an audience of at least 1.3 million concurrent listeners at the worst moment of his campaign so far. And he predicted at least 100 million people would consume the content in the coming days.

Both Trump and Musk had lots to gain

At times during the event, Trump — who spent months hammering Biden over his age, stutter and struggles to sometimes complete sentences — appeared to be lisping or slurring his words. It was not clear whether an audio issue was to blame. Asked for an explanation, the ex-president’s campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said: “Must be your hearing.”

The chummy conversation between the tycoon and the former president also showed what each man had to gain.

Musk was able to impress upon a possible future president, who is known for transactional leadership, his own views on immigration, the economy, curtailing government regulation and tax cuts. Musk’s companies, including SpaceX, a key player in the US space program, and Tesla, which makes electric vehicles, can be impacted by changes in government policy. The entire conversation was rife with potential conflicts of interest. No ordinary American would ever have a similar opportunity to have the ear of a possible future president.

At one point, Musk even offered to take a position in the US government — perhaps as part of an efficiency commission to slash the administrative state. Trump said he’d “love it” if Musk got involved, noting the multi-billionaire is a great “cutter.”

Trump gained plenty from his investment of more than two hours of his time. Musk didn’t challenge him on any of his lies and misrepresentations – for instance, his prediction that 60 million undocumented migrants would invade the United States if he lost in November.

During the talk, Musk downplayed the threat from global warming while defending his pioneering electric vehicle empire. Trump, meanwhile, warned about the threat from “nuclear warming,” which he said posed a greater danger than “global warming.” It was not clear if he was trying to refer to nuclear power – which Musk argued was “not as scary as people think.”

The encounter was a powerful example of the way that presidential politics has been transformed by social media and the splintering of traditional journalism. Trump may not have been president without Twitter, as his emergence as a political force in 2016 coincided with the site’s heyday. His skills at exploiting the new medium like no other politician made that year’s presidential election a unique combination of a man and his moment.

Eight years on, under the leadership of Musk, who preaches unfettered free speech, X has dismantled many of the safeguards against the propagation of falsehoods and conspiracy theories on the site. It is, therefore, a perfect venue for the ex-president to escape the constraints of traditional media and to spin his web of alternative reality — which is hugely popular among his millions of supporters.

Republicans are complaining about what they say is flattering media coverage of the nascent Harris run. But few candidates have had an easier ride than the Republican nominee got on X on Monday night.

In a sign of the international political questions raised by the evolution of X, a European commissioner, Thierry Breton, wrote to Musk to warn him that he must prevent the “amplification of harmful content,” which could be accessed by consumers inside the bloc.

Cheung warned on X that the EU should “mind their own business instead of trying to meddle in the US Presidential election,” in an exchange that appeared to auger poorly for already testy relations between the Trump team and Musk and Europe.

After years avoiding Twitter and X, Trump had gushing praise for Musk

Trump spooled out countless falsehoods and exaggerations on Monday night, including over the numbers of migrants who crossed the border, the extent of the inflation crisis that has now cooled, his legal troubles, the current administration’s energy policy and his familiar claim that foreign nations were dumping their prisoners across the southern US border.

There is no doubt that many of Trump’s voters, listening in or hearing highlights of the conversation in the coming days, will agree with what much of the former president said in a way that underscores his political viability even after Harris transformed the race.

At points, Trump did make a more coherent and focused argument for a second term than he has in recent days, when he has appeared to be discombobulated by the shift in a race he believed he was primed to win against Biden. He and Musk accused the current president and the vice president of adopting spending policies that fueled the inflation that has been painful for millions of Americans.

But Trump’s constant meanderings and amplification of conspiracy theories also demonstrated why many voters disdain him and why there are questions about his appeal to suburban and women voters in battleground states.

Early on, it seemed as though the session would become a fresh metaphor for Trump’s misfires, as it was delayed by technical glitches. Musk claimed that a distributed denial-of-service attack was to blame, although it was not possible to immediately confirm that bad actors had been responsible. “There is a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say,” Musk said.

The Harris campaign was quick to respond, posting a Trump Truth Social post from last year that lambasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over the troubled start to his primary campaign in a glitchy Twitter Spaces event with Musk.

The event marked Trump’s return to X, formerly known as Twitter, from which he was banned by the site’s previous owners after the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol by his mob. His account was restored by Musk.

Anyone who listened to the full two-hour conversation would have learned more about Musk’s evolving political views – and his growing willingness to use his power and wealth to express them – than anything fresh about Trump. But the ex-president was gushingly grateful for a new friend in a time of political need.

“You’re an amazing guy, you’ve done an incredible job. You are a great inspiration to people,” Trump said before saying goodbye.

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