Off The Record

In A Two-hour Talk With Elon Musk, Donald Trump Says Domestic “Enemies” Were “More Dangerous” Than Foreign

Published on August 15, 2024

In a meandering, two-hour talk on X that was postponed due to technical difficulties on the social media platform, Donald Trump informed Elon Musk that domestic “enemies” were “more dangerous” than foreign foes like Russia and China.

The discussion on Monday, billed by Trump as the “greatest interview ever,” was heard at times by more than 1 million people, according to X, though Musk had prepared for 8 million people to join the talk with the former president, which began 42 minutes later than planned.

Following Vice President Kamala Harris’s surprise victory over President Joe Biden as the Democratic Party’s nominee for the White House last month, Trump has been attempting to acclimate to a more competitive presidential contest.

The conversation highlighted Trump’s attraction to Musk, a self-described “free-speech absolutist” who has shifted significantly to the right in recent years and has promoted his immigration and regulation policies on social media platform X.

The former president began the discussion by giving a detailed account of the July assassination attempt on him in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Shortly before the November election, in October, Trump promised to return to the community.

He then accused Democrats of engineering a “coup” to replace Biden on the presidential ticket. Musk suggested that the party “took [Biden] out back behind the shed and basically shot him.”

Trump further charged that Harris was becoming a “radical left, San Francisco liberal… and now she wants to be more Trump than Trump,” accusing her of moving toward the center on matters like immigration.

As Harris has risen in the polls, the former president has been finding it difficult to come up with a consistent attack strategy in recent weeks, even going so far as to call into question her race.

On Monday, he continued to be sporadic in his criticism and seldom ever called out Harris by name.

In addition, he was filled with wrath towards his political rivals, saying that he had “enemies on the outside and enemies on the inside” and that “bad people in our government” were a greater threat than foreign foes.

The former president declared that North Korean, Chinese, and Russian leaders were “at the top of their game.”

“They are tough, they are smart and they are vicious,” he said.

Musk showered the former president with compliments while attempting time and again to steer the discussion toward more centrist topics like immigration, where he praised Trump as a moderate and made a distinction between legal and illegal immigration, as well as cutting back on government spending and containing the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Trump made up the claims that it was “very difficult” for American farmers to sell their produce abroad and that it was “impossible” to sell US autos in Europe.

Additionally, he significantly overstated US assistance to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia and underestimated European assistance.

“We have a deficit with [the EU] of $250 billion, which people don’t know,” said Trump. “It sounds so nice—’the European Union’. But let me tell you: they’re not as tough as China, but they’re bad. And I let them know it, and that’s probably why they notified you. No, they don’t treat our country well.”

Prior to the interview, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton sent Musk a letter cautioning him against breaking the bloc’s Digital Services Act by spreading hate speech or false information.

The United Auto Workers union announced on Tuesday that it had brought federal labor charges against “disgraced billionaires Donald Trump and Elon Musk” in connection with remarks made by the outgoing president endorsing Musk’s decision to fire workers who went on strike.

“I look at what you do,” Trump said in the interview with Musk. “They go on strike and you say, ‘that’s OK, you’re all gone’.”

The UAW pointed out that terminating employees for going on strike or threatening to go on strike is illegal under federal law.

Towards the end of the interview, the 78-year-old Trump bashed Biden, who is 81, for being “close to a vegetable state.” Musk responded: “We just don’t have a president right now.”

Musk had stated in 2022 that Trump would be 82 years old at the conclusion of his next presidential term, “which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America.” The Harris campaign cited this.

A spokesperson for the Harris campaign said that Trump’s “extremism” was on “full display for those unlucky enough to listen in tonight” after the interview.

“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.”