From The Blaze.com (Aug. 14):
Monday night, Elon Musk, the billionaire tech giant and owner of X, conducted a historic virtual interview over his social media platform with former President Donald Trump that his team dubbed “THE INTERVIEW OF THE CENTURY!” Despite being plagued with technical difficulties, including a late start caused by a denial-of-service attack and poor audio quality on President Trump’s end, the two-hour interview garnered a billion views, marking a win for free speech and alternative media.
“Musk’s act of commercial statesmanship by buying a media apparatus enables free political speech at a time when it is being crushed. Conversation with Trump tonight proves the thesis. This is a commercial-cultural movement in the midst of a cold civil war. And this = how to win,” Matthew Peterson, the editor in chief of Blaze Media, posted on X.
Here are the seven most important topics Elon Musk discussed with President Donald Trump:
1. Failed assassination attempt
Right off the bat, Musk and Trump delved into the failed assassination attempt. Trump recalls the moment when he felt the bullet graze his ear and told Musk his escape was “an act of God.”
“For those people that don't believe in God, I think we gotta all start thinking about that. You have to, you know, I'm a believer. Now I'm more of a believer,” Trump said.
While Trump focused on how he was thankful that he survived the assassination attempt, Musk took a jab at the Secret Service’s failure and said, “How on earth does a shooter get on a roof 130 yards away? That seems crazy. I think most people are wondering how on earth could such a thing happen."
Then, after Trump explained the entire situation again, how the shot was “not a long shot” and how it was a miracle that he turned his head toward the illegal immigration graphic at the right moment, Trump made a joke, saying, “Illegal immigration saved my life.”
2. Open borders
Speaking of illegal immigration, Trump’s most important policy issue, Trump and Musk traded jabs at the border czar, Kamala Harris.
Following the Harris campaign’s recent ad portraying her as being tough on immigration and the false claim that she was never the border czar in the first place, Trump argued the Biden-Harris administration has been a disaster for the border.
“[Kamala] could close it up right now. [The Biden administration] could do things right now. It's horrible,” Trump said.
Trump also criticized the current administration for letting “people that are in jail for murder and all sorts of things” into this country.
“She was totally in charge. She could have shut the border down without [Biden]. … She was in charge of the border, and the border was the worst ever,” Trump added.
Musk replied, “And if we have another four more years of open borders, and it's gonna be even worse, with another four more years, it's gonna be even worse than it's been for the past three and a half years. I'm not sure we've got a country.”
3. Interventionism run amok
Not only is America more dangerous under the Biden administration, but so is the rest of the world. The Biden-Harris foreign policy has led to violence across the world, which Trump claimed would never have happened if he were still the commander in chief.
From the Middle East to East Asia and Russia, Trump blames the high tensions across the world on Biden’s frenzied foreign policy.
“All this stuff that you're seeing now, all the horror … look at Israel. They're all waiting for an attack from Iran,” Trump said. He also insisted that if he were still president, “Israel would have never been attacked [by Hamas]” in the first place, “Iran would not be attacking” since it knew "not to mess around,” and Putin would never have [invaded Ukraine] if he was in charge.
Then, Trump told Musk about a conversation he had with Vladimir Putin while he was president, in which he told Putin, “Don't do it. You can't do it, Vladimir. [If] you do it, it's gonna be a bad day. You cannot do it.”
Most importantly, Trump urged a return to a foreign policy that seeks to de-escalate foreign conflicts. He criticized Biden’s incompetence in dealing with Russia and warned that “it can lead to World War III.”
“I think you're right. I think people underrate the risk of World War III. And it's just, when looking at the risk of global thermonuclear warfare, it's game over for humanity,” Musk replied.
4. Cost of living
Perhaps the most important policy issue this election cycle, tied with the border, is inflation and the economy. For the past four years, Americans have lived in a highly inflationary environment due to the left’s radical economic plans.
“It's a disaster with inflation. The inflation, it doesn't matter what you make. The inflation has eaten you alive,” Trump said.
Musk explained why the Biden-Harris administration has been so bad for American’s wallets and urged the next administration to cut spending to reduce inflation.
“Inflation comes from government overspending because the checks never bounce when it's written by the government,” Musk explained. “So if the government spends far more than it brings in, that increases the money supply. And if the money supply increases faster than the rate of goods and services, that's inflation.”
Then, Musk volunteered himself to help solve the inflation and spending problem and said he would “be happy to help out” on “a government efficiency commission that takes a look at these things and just ensures that the taxpayers' hard-earned money is spent in a good way.”
5. Education reform
One of the biggest drivers of government deficits is the federal government's spending billions on federal agencies. The Department of Education, which has faced considerable scrutiny from conservatives over the past half-century for being inefficient and seizing control from states and parents, would be first on the chopping block for President Trump.
“I need somebody that has a lot of strength and courage and smarts. I wanna close up the Department of Education, move education back to the states,” Trump told Musk.
If Trump follows through, state legislators would have more control over their education policies, which could result in more school choice legislation at the state level — a massive victory for families who want to choose where they send their kids to school.
6. Energy, AI, and tech
Americans can’t afford electricity, either. That’s why Trump vows to “bring energy prices down” in his next term.
“Not only gasoline; it's the cost of heating your house and cooling your house. That has to come down. It's gone up 100%, 150%, and 200%, and that has to come down. When that comes down, and we're gonna drill, baby, drill,” Trump promised.
Furthermore, Trump understands the need for efficient energy access to support AI innovation. AI development is driving the swell in energy consumption, which requires immediate reaction from legislators and industry leaders. Some have warned AI’s demand for energy is “pushing the world toward an energy crisis.”
“And I know you're a big fan of AI, and I have to say that AI, and this is shocking to me, but AI requires twice the energy that the country already produces for everything,” Trump told Musk.
“So you're gonna have to build, we're gonna have to build a lot of energy if our country will be competitive with China, because that's our primary competitor for this AI. You're gonna need a lot of electricity. You're gonna need tremendous electricity, almost double what we produce now for the whole country, if you can believe it,” he added.
7. The far left
Trump asked Musk why he is voting for him to cap the interview off. Essentially, Musk, a former “moderate Democrat,” thinks the Democrats are swinging too far left.
“They're rewriting history and making Kamala sound like a moderate when in fact she is far left, like far, far left,” Musk complained.
“Worse than Bernie Sanders. … She's a radical left lunatic,” Trump replied.
Lastly, Musk urged fellow moderates to vote for Trump. “I'm just trying to point out that my track record historically has been moderate; if not moderate, slightly left. And so this is to people out there who are in the moderate camp to say I think you should support Donald Trump for president. And I think it's actually a very important junction in the road. And we're in deep trouble if it goes the other way,” Musk said. [source]
What’s most interesting about the interview is that Trump wants to do away with the Dept. of Education. Great! Though the teachers’ unions will blow a gasket and probably say Trump is against teachers or education or something stupid like that, it is still a good idea. Grade school education should go back to the local level. It’s the teachers’ unions that are against school choice because, after all, it’s harder to indoctrinate the kiddies when big gov doesn’t have control over the curriculum.
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