President Donald J. Trump’s Full ‘Conversation’ With Elon Musk And 7 Takeaways

President Donald J. Trump was allowed back onto Twitter (now X) by Elon Musk in the name of freedom of speech.

Elon Musk decided to interview President Trump about the many problems that America and we, the people, are facing.

Take the time to listen to the full interview. You will learn a lot from it.

In a column in the Daily Signal, Fred Lucas outlines some of the key points discussed.

LISTEN TO: Full interview with President Trump and Elon Musk on August 12, 2024

7 Lessons From Trump’s ‘Conversation’ With Elon Musk

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk had a lengthy “conversation” with Donald Trump on his social media platform X on Monday night, during which he offered, among other things, to help the former president rein in federal spending if he is elected for a second term.

In a two-hour conversation with Musk, Trump discussed illegal immigration and violent crime, dangerous foreign leaders, the effects of high inflation and taxes, and the need to reduce government spending and regulations while boosting domestic production of oil and natural gas.

These topics and more came up after Musk and Trump spent more than 20 minutes reflecting on Trump’s narrow escape from a would-be assassin’s bullets a month ago. The start of the chat was delayed for more than half an hour due to what Musk called a massive hacking attempt on the site.

Trump appeared to be struggling to focus on Vice President Kamala Harris as his opponent in the Nov. 5 election after Democrats pressured President Joe Biden to step aside and backed Harris to replace him at the top of the ticket.

“She believes in the radical left,” Trump said at one point, “and he doesn’t.”

The number of people tuning in during the interview was unclear. By the end, X was showing 30.6 million.

Musk has financially supported a pro-Trump political action committee during this race, though he has not always been a Trump supporter.

Musk has said he was an enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama and noted that he reluctantly voted for Biden in 2020. During the Republican presidential primary, Musk supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who ultimately withdrew.

Here are seven key takeaways from the Trump-Musk debate.

1. ‘Commission for Government Efficiency’

“They want the American dream back,” Trump said of Americans at one point, citing rising prices for eggs, bacon, milk and other staples in recent years.

Musk focused a bit on something that Trump on the right doesn’t see as a strong point: reining in government spending.

“Inflation is caused by government spending,” Musk said, then asked: “Do you agree that we should take a look at government spending, and perhaps set up a government efficiency commission that tries to make spending sensible, so that the country lives within its means, just like a person?”

Trump responded that the government does not negotiate prices the same way businesses do, but that he did negotiate $1.6 billion in savings on upgrades to Air Force One.

Now, he said, those “dumb suckers” don’t negotiate government contracts anymore.

Musk pressed again, this time offering his help.

“I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that looks at these things and makes sure that taxpayers’ hard-earned money is being spent wisely,” Musk said. “I would be happy to help with such a commission if it were created.”

Trump responded, “I would love that.”

“You, you’re the best cutter,” Trump said. “I watch what you do. You come in, I won’t mention the name, they’re going on strike, and you say, ‘That’s OK. Y’all gone.’ You’d be great. You’d love it.”

Kamala Harris HQ responded in a post to X: “Trump praises billionaire Elon Musk for firing workers who struck for better wages, working conditions.”

2. ‘Makes me more of a believer’

Musk began the conversation by asking Trump about the attempted assassination at a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

A bullet grazed his right ear, the former president recalled, as he turned slightly to talk about a large graph showing illegal immigration rates during the Trump and Pence administrations compared with the much higher numbers during the Biden and Harris administrations.

“It was an even greater miracle that I was looking directly at the shooter, so (the bullet) hit me at an angle that was far less devastating than any other miracle,” Trump told Musk in the audio interview on X.

One protester was killed and two others were wounded by the shooter. Trump expressed sadness that they were hit by bullets meant for him.

“For those people who don’t believe in God, I think we all need to think about that,” Trump said. “I’m a believer, but it’s made me more of a believer, I think. A lot of great people have said that to me, actually. It was amazing that I happened to be at that perfect angle.”

Musk, who supported Trump after the attempted assassination, called him “brave” Monday night for standing up and raising his fist in the air after being punched.

3. ‘Illegal immigration saved my life’

The two spoke at length about the shooting, focusing on the large graph showing illegal border crossings, which caused Trump to turn his head in a certain direction.

“Illegal immigration saved my life,” Trump said at one point, prompting Musk to laugh.

Trump has frequently campaigned on restoring border security and keeping criminal gangs and drug traffickers out of the country. The former president has also promised the “largest deportation effort” in history to send home illegal aliens admitted by the Biden-Harris administration.

Senator Ron Johnson (Republican of Wisconsin) had his staff create the original diagram for use during a hearing.

“I’m going to sleep with that chart. That chart was very important for a lot of reasons,” Trump said.

He mentioned several times that Harris had the unofficial title of “border czar” after Biden appointed her in early 2021 to identify the root causes of illegal immigration, a problem that subsequently worsened.

“I saw an ad of Kamala talking about providing border security,” Trump said. “Where has she been the last three and a half years?”

“We’re already overwhelmed, Elon. We’re overwhelmed,” the former president said at another point, speaking of illegal aliens admitted by the Biden-Harris administration.

4. ‘Drag him behind the barn’

Musk later used the word “shot” figuratively to describe how Democrats forced Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race, using a metaphor for putting a wounded farm animal out of its misery.

“This was a coup by the president of the United States,” Trump said of Biden, before referring to other top Democrats. “He didn’t want to go, and they said, ‘We can do this the nice way or we can do this the hard way.'”

Musk agreed, saying metaphorically that Biden had been shot.

“They just took him behind the barn and shot him,” Musk said.

Trump began by saying, “What they did to this man…” before making it clear he didn’t want to defend Biden too much.

“I’m not a fan of his, and he was a terrible president, the worst president in history,” Trump said, tapping into a familiar theme.

5. ‘Faulty government’

Trump derided the Biden-Harris administration as “flawed.”

“We have a flawed government. These are flawed people,” the 45th president said.

Trump later said that in some ways the US government has become worse than its enemies.

“We have some really bad people in our government,” Trump said. “I would say they are more dangerous than Russia or China. We need a smart president, a president who understands. We are not in danger from those countries, because they need us and they need our help.”

Musk asked most of the questions during the exchange. However, at one point Trump asked Musk, “Do you think Biden could do this interview? Do you think Kamala could do this interview?”

Musk laughed and replied, “No. They couldn’t.”

Trump responded: “It’s pretty sad.”

“Yes, absolutely,” Musk agreed.

6. ‘Iron Dome’ for America

Trump said Biden’s comments made the world less safe, including when the president talked about Ukraine joining NATO while Russia dug in with its invasion of the former Soviet republic.

“Biden had a low IQ 30 years ago. He has a very low IQ now,” Trump said.

“The words he used were so bad,” Trump said of Biden. “The stupid threats that came out of his stupid face. It could have started World War III.”

Musk claimed, “People are underestimating the risk of World War III,” adding, “It’s game over for humanity.”

Trump argued that the greatest threat to humanity is not climate change or global warming, but “nuclear warming.”

Trump brought up an “Iron Dome” for America, using the name of the anti-missile system Israel developed as a shield to thwart missile attacks from its enemies.

“Why wouldn’t we have an Iron Dome?” Trump said. “Israel has an Iron Dome.”

7. The President’s ‘Vegetable Stage’

“Biden is now, in my opinion, close to the ‘vegetable’ stage,” Trump said bluntly at one point, perhaps referring to those who argue that Harris should have succeeded Biden as president long ago, rather than merely replacing him on the ballot.

“I looked at him on the beach (in photos last weekend) and I thought why would anyone let him — that man could barely walk. He has a political adviser who thinks this looks good?” Trump said.

“He can’t lift the chair,” Trump added. “The chair weighs about three ounces! It’s meant for children and the elderly.”

Musk responded: “Clearly we don’t have a president right now.”

Trump added of Harris and her record as vice president, senator and attorney general of California: “And she’s worse than he is.”

Ken McIntyre contributed to this report.

AUTHOR

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the chief news correspondent and manager of the Investigative Reporting Project for The Daily Signal. He is the author of “The Myth of Voter Suppression: The Left’s Assault on Clean Elections” Send an email to Fred. Fred at X: @FredLucasWH

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