Trump’s X interview: Ex-US president lashes out at Biden, Harris
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00:00International Affairs Editor Ketavan Ghojasani. Ketavan, what were some of the main takeaways
00:04from this chat, which Elon Musk dubbed an interview?
00:08Well, first of all, it was really not an interview. It was a chat, but it was also very familiar
00:16for those who have watched Donald Trump's rallies, because it really sounded like a
00:21rally speech, just interspaced with some prompts by Elon Musk. First, the form of it was a
00:30significant in the sense that Donald Trump at times really went on these sentences that
00:37didn't really end. He was rambling a little bit. Sometimes he was pretty hard to follow.
00:42And there was also something that was noted by a lot of listeners, including his supporters,
00:46who were wondering what was really going on, because it seemed at some times that he was
00:52either that he had a lisp or that he was slurring his words. It might have been an audio issue.
00:59It might have been his speech. But either way, it didn't really look good for Donald Trump.
01:04Now, when it comes to content, there was a little bit of policy, mostly focusing on the
01:09two issues that the Republicans feel like is in their favor, which is, of course, immigration
01:16and the economy, especially inflation. So he went after both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on those
01:22topics. But otherwise, as in his rallies, there was a lot of his personal attacks,
01:27personal grievances and a lot of falsehood. And when it comes to the attacks, he did spend quite
01:35a long time continuing to attack the president of the United States, Joe Biden, whom he's no longer
01:41running against. He called him stupid. He said he was close to a vegetable. But he also kept a few
01:49attacks for Kamala Harris that he has called incompetent, radical left lunatic, but also a
01:54little bit of praise, which was a very odd moment where he said that she looks like the most
01:59beautiful actress alive. He was talking about the front, the cover of Time magazine. He even compared
02:06Kamala Harris to his own wife, Melania Trump. So that was a little bit odd. But overall, if you
02:12take the sort of two hours and more of that chat, he did manage to make some policy points a little
02:19bit and most importantly, avoid major missteps or major controversial comments that would have
02:27sort of derailed the message. And that has happened in recent weeks for Donald Trump. So it is
02:33significant that he was able to not create any controversy really in that chat. I mean, he has
02:39spoken about his daughter's looks in the past, so that's not surprising there. Let's talk about
02:43why on earth Donald Trump would do this. Is he missing the media spotlight? It definitely feels
02:48like this conversation with Elon Musk was intended to sort of give his campaign a sort of reset,
02:54a boost, as an answer to Kamala Harris' surging campaign, the media coverage going viral,
03:05talking about the crowd sizes, which we know over the years that Donald Trump
03:10likes to talk about and he likes to focus on his crowd sizes, but also her surge in the polls.
03:17She has basically erased all of the lead that Donald Trump had, especially in swing states, and
03:24the fact that he did this on X, formerly known as Twitter, also shows that even though he has his
03:30own social media platform, he realizes that Twitter has a reach that Truth Social absolutely doesn't
03:36have. There were more than a million listeners for that discussion with Elon Musk and just yesterday,
03:43by yesterday evening alone, with his return on X, he gained about 900,000 new followers. That is
03:50very important for Donald Trump, and there's also a question about his campaign schedule and his
03:56presence in the media in general. Since the beginning of the month of August, he's only
04:01done three events, two rallies, one in Georgia at the very beginning of the month, one in Montana.
04:06There was that big press conference in Mar-a-Lago, and he's going to hold a rally on Saturday, but
04:11that's not a lot when you see Kamala Harris and Tim Walz really crisscrossing all of those
04:16battleground states, and the Republicans want him to be on the campaign trail more often, not just
04:22let J.D. Vance take the lead. What they also want him to do is stop talking about these attacks, stop
04:29complaining about the crowd sizes. Kevin McCarthy, the former Speaker of the House Republican,
04:35saying stop questioning the crowd sizes and focus on attacking Kamala Harris, on her positions,
04:43on a policy. This is how we're going to win. It's not about, you know, making some
04:50insults at your opponents. It's about focusing on the policy, especially immigration and the economy.