Rambling Trump, Musk interview marred by tech issues
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STORY: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's two-hour interview with billionaire Elon Musk on X got off to a delayed start after more than half an hour of technical problems on Monday (August 13). Musk blamed the delays on a DDoS or distributed denial-of-service attack, where a server is flooded with traffic to shut it down, though his claims could not be verified. The friendly talk with Trump offered the candidate an unfiltered venue to air his usual mix of grievances, personal attacks and overstated or false claims. That included attacking Democrat candidate Kamala Harris, whose 11th-hour entry into the race as president Joe Biden stepped aside has galvanized her party and boosted Democratic fundraising. “....say what you want. This was the coup. This was a coup of a president of the United States. He didn't want to leave. And they said, we can do it the nice way. Oh, we can do it the hard way.” Musk, who backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020, has supported Trump since his attempted assassination. Trump praised Musk's willingness to fire workers demanding better conditions and Musk praised Trump for bravery after the attempt on his life last month. “So, I think it's a massive, I think we're in massive trouble, frankly, with a Kamala administration. And that's my honest opinion. And I think really it's essential that you win for the good of the country of this election. And, I mean, that's understating my opinion.” A counter on X showed as many as 1.3 million people listened to the interview at some points. Musk let Trump lead the conversation and did not challenge Trump's statements including the false claim that bacon prices had risen four or five times or that other countries were sending criminals from their prisons across the southern U.S. border. Studies show immigrants, including those in the U.S. illegally, do not commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans. And while Trump is a longstanding critic of electric vehicles, on Monday he described the electric cars made by Tesla as "incredible." Trump had been leading Biden in many polls of battleground states likely to be critical to the outcome of the Nov. 5 election, but he is now trailing Harris in some of the same states. Musk has started an external super PAC spending group to support Trump's campaign. It is now under investigation in Michigan for possible violations of state laws on gathering voter information.
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