Cyberattack, inflation, immigration: Six takeaways from the Trump-Musk conversation | Donald Trump News

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, 78, gave a friendly two-hour interview to billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, 53, on the latter's social media platform X on Monday after technical issues delayed the start of the event by more than 40 minutes.

Here are some of the key takeaways from what the Trump campaign billed as the greatest interview in history:

Massive DDoS Cyberattack

About 15 minutes into the interview, thousands of people trying to join the conversation on X began complaining that they couldn’t hear what was happening. Others reported being met with an error message that read: This space is not available, referring to X’s live audio streaming feature, Spaces.

Musk blamed the incident on a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that overloaded servers.

In a DDoS attack, hackers attempt to flood a network with unusually high volumes of data traffic in order to paralyze it when it can no longer cope with the magnitude of data requested.

“The attack saturated all of our data lines. We believe we have overcome most of those issues. As this massive attack shows, there is a lot of opposition to people simply hearing what President Trump has to say, but I am honored to have this conversation,” Musk said.

He added that the conversation was meant to be informal, to help open-minded independent voters who are simply trying to form an opinion.

There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on . I'm working on shutting it down.

In the worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and publish the conversation later.

Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024

The technical issues recalled a similar event on X in May 2023, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis got off to a rocky start to his bid for the Republican presidential nomination due to issues on the platform.

The Trump-Musk live stream finally began at 12:42 GMT, more than 40 minutes after the scheduled start time.

Trump sought to spin the technical glitch into something positive, praising Musk for the number of people trying to tune in. A counter on X showed that as many as 1.3 million people were listening at some points during the conversation.

Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris' team was also following the conversation. On X, they re-shared a 2022 post in which Musk attacked Trump's age.

Interesting photo.twitter.com/z8UnPRt85a

Kamala Headquarters (@KamalaHQ) August 12, 2024

The conversation with Musk gave Trump an unfiltered opportunity to air his usual mix of grievances, personal attacks and exaggerated, if not false, claims.

Musk praised Trump's response to assassination attempt

Well, maybe we could start with the assassination attempt, Musk said early in the conversation.

Musk added that one of the reasons he supported Trump's presidential bid was because of Trump's reaction to the attack, saying that Trump pumping his fists was just incredibly inspiring.

How was it for you? he asked.

“It's not pleasant, I have to be honest. I didn't realize I had that much blood, it was a hard hit, I went down pretty quickly, and the bullets flew right over my head after I went down,” Trump said.

It was very, I guess you could say, surreal, but it wasn't surreal. You know, I was telling somebody there are moments like this where you feel like this is a surreal situation. And I've never felt that way. I knew immediately it was a bullet, Trump said of the moment the bullet hit his ear.

“I'm a believer now. I believe in God more, I believe,” Trump added.

Former President Donald Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, is rushed off stage during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. [Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images via AFP]
Trump promised the largest expulsions in history

Trump and Musk discussed immigration at length.

Would it be accurate to say that you support legal immigration, but obviously we need to stop illegal immigration and especially uncontrolled illegal immigration, Musk asked.

“It is simply impossible for the United States to absorb all the people on Earth,” Musk said, identifying himself as a legal immigrant.

Trump responded: I say it very simply, they have to come in legally, they have to be vetted.

“I think more than 20 million people have come to our country, many of them from prisons, mental institutions or insane asylums, and many of them are terrorists,” he added. “And I'll tell you, they're not just from South America, but from Africa and all over the world,” he added.

The former president promised that if elected, we would carry out the largest deportation in the history of this country.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 7.1 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico between January 2021 and June 2024. Studies also show that immigrants, including those who arrived in the United States illegally, do not commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans.

Trump called Biden's replacement with Harris a coup

Trump expressed anger that Vice President Kamala Harris was traded for Biden, whom he called a vegetable on the Democratic ticket.

She hasn't given an interview since this scam started. And say what you want. It was the coup. It was the coup of a president of the United States. He wouldn't leave. And they said, we can do it the nice way. Or we can do it the hard way, Trump said.

Before Kamala Harris, a radical left-wing lunatic and, in Trump's words, a woman of few intelligence, was announced as the new Democratic presidential nominee, Trump had led Biden in key state polls (including ABC News/Ipsos, CBS News, Fox News and NBC News) that could be decisive in the November 5 election.

However, he is now trailing Harris in some of those same states, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll that shows Harris with 50 percent support among voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, compared to 46 percent support for Trump in each of those states.

What I can tell you is we can't have a Democrat. We can't have her. She's incompetent. She's as bad as Biden is at anything else. [way]Trump said.

Musk also expressed his displeasure that Harris could run for president.

What happens overnight is they rewrite history and make Kamala look like a moderate when in fact she's far left, far, far left, Musk said.

“I think we’re in big trouble, frankly, with a Kamala administration. And that’s my honest opinion. And I think it’s really critical that you win for the good of the country in this election. And, I mean, that’s an understatement,” he added.

Trump denounced the worst inflation in 100 years

During the interview, Trump also criticized what he called the inflation crisis while targeting the current administration for the current numbers.

“I think we have the worst inflation in 100 years. They say it's 48 years, I don't believe it,” he told Musk.

At this point, Musk suggested creating a government efficiency commission.

“I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that would look at these things and make sure that taxpayer dollars, taxpayers' hard-earned dollars, are being spent wisely,” Musk told Trump.

“I would be happy to assist such a commission,” he added.

“I would love that,” Trump said, noting that the billionaire was a major appetite suppressant after launching mass layoffs at Tesla. “You go in and you just say, ‘You want to quit? They’re going on strike, I won’t mention the name of the company, but they’re going on strike and you say, ‘Okay, you’re all gone.’ Every single one of you is gone,” he added.

Trump expressed affection for South America

Trump praised Argentine President Javier Milei and his austerity measures that have seen the layoff of more than 70,000 public sector workers and a 30% cut in pensions to reverse spending that led the country to default on its debts.

“He’s great,” Trump told Musk. “I hear he’s doing a great job. He’s going to make Argentina great again.”

Annual inflation in the South American country, however, still exceeds 270 percent, one of the highest rates in the world and outpacing wages. Unemployment in Argentina has become a major concern for Milei as the government has frozen infrastructure projects.

Trump also joked that he might consider traveling to Venezuela if the upcoming election doesn't go his way.

If something happens with this election, which would be a horror show, we will meet next time in Venezuela, because that will be a much safer place to meet than our country, Trump told Musk. OK, then let's go. You and I will go, and we will have a meeting and dinner in Venezuela.

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