New York:Donald Trump recounted his assassination attempt, talked about Israel's war on Gaza, promised the largest deportation in US history, claimed Joe Biden's exit was a coup, as he spoke to Elon Musk in an interview broadcast live on X on Tuesday morning (India time).
The interview was plagued with technical issueswith many users unable to access the conversation, which finally began 41 minutes after its initial start time.
“If I had not turned my head, I would not be talking to you right now — as much as I like you," Trump told X’s owner Elon Musk. Musk, a former Trump critic, said the Republican nominee's toughness, as demonstrated by his reaction to last month's shooting, was critical for national security. “There’s some real tough characters out there," Musk said. "And if they don’t think the American president is tough, they will do what they want to do.”
'Biden's exit was a coup'
Trump during the interview claimed that Joe Biden was forced to drop out of the US Presidential race due to a "coup". "I beat Biden so bad in the debate, he was forced out of the race - one of the greatest debate performances ever. Biden's exit, it was a coup." the 78-year-old said. Doubling down on Trump's claim, Musk said, "They basically took him behind a shed and shot him."
The rare public conversation between Trump and Musk, which spanned more than three hours and was overwhelmingly friendly, revealed little new about Trump’s plans for a second term. The former president spent much of the discussion focused on his recent assassination attempt, illegal immigration and his plans to cut government regulations.
Still, the online meeting underscored just how much the U.S. political landscape has changed less than four years after Trump was permanently banned by the social media platform’s former leadership for spreading disinformation that sparked the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress and undermined the very foundation of the American democracy.
Trump and Musk chatted on a variety of issues, with much of Trump’s responses mirroring some of the multitopic stem-winding that’s typical of his rallies and speeches.
That included anecdotes about his interactions with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as critiques on what both men characterized as Democrats’ failures in securing the U.S.-Mexico border and tamping down crime in American cities.
There was also specific discussion of Harris, with both Trump and Musk warning of the direction into which they felt she would lead the U.S. as president. Much of the convivial back and forth sounded less like a newsmaker interview and more like a conversation between similarly minded allies. Musk endorsed Trump just after the assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania campaign rally last month.
Trump says illustration of Harris looks like Melania
Trump likened the recent Time magazine cover illustration of Harris to another highly visible woman adjacent to American politics: his own wife. “She looked very much like our great first lady, Melania,” Trump told Musk, as they discussed the cover image of Monday’s issue.
Time’s new cover story on Harris features the phrase, “Her Moment,” alongside a black-and-white illustration of the vice president. The magazine has caught some critique for putting out the story, for which Harris declined to be interviewed, amid Republican reproval that she hasn’t sat for a media interview since Biden quit the campaign, making way for her.
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