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Finally, 41 minutes late and discouraged by events far beyond his control, former President Donald Trump’s much-publicized X-conversation with the owner of the platform ended began on Monday evening. The tech setback involving Elon Musk was just the latest in a three-week series of very bad experiences for the ex-president and his hopes of reclaiming the White House. Events that have left him angry and fearful.
In the wake of the failed July 13 assassination attempt, Trump faces his toughest battle since his stormy arrival on the political stage in June 2015. Once the only voice able to cut through the political noise, he is now overshadowed by Vice President Kamala Harris’ dramatic selection of Joe Biden as the Democratic frontrunner. Trump’s voice even sounded a little off during his conversation with Musk. Events have unfolded so quickly that Trump is trying to get back into the spotlight, perhaps for the first time since he really entered politics, going so far as to oppose some truly crazy ideas, like Biden’s secret plan to unseat Harris for the nomination.
“We never get the credit,” Trump said during a two-hour session that lacked the pizzazz that has been the hallmark of his rallies, which until recently were the biggest draw in politics. That honor now goes to Harris and her vice president., Tim Walz, who recalibrated the race and overtook Trump’s dominance at the proverbial political box office. Trump’s fortunes now appear as tenuous as they did on Election Day 2016, when he faced a sluggish defeat. And the usually confident Trump clearly doesn’t know how to change that.
Monday’s delayed conversation began with the failed assassination attempt, which Trump was only willing to talk about once, insisting “it’s actually too painful to talk about,” during his nominating convention in Milwaukee, where he arrived with a bandaged ear. “Illegal immigration saved my life,” Trump told Musk toward the end of a rambling speech about that day, explaining again how turning his head toward a map prevented the bullet from hitting his skull.
Well, that was when he was almost a martyr. Things are different today, and Trump is returning to his recurring themes that immigrants coming to the United States bring with them “contagious diseases” and crime. There are currently 20 million, and if Harris wins, the number could rise to 60 million. They will also be released from prisons, detention centers, and mental institutions. (None of this is true.) He singled out “criminals who make our criminals look like nice people.” And he continued to insist on his disproven claims that Harris, as czarina, could have unilaterally closed the border on her own.
In the weeks between Biden’s shocking performance at the June 27 debate and his resignation announcement on July 21, Democrats found themselves in open crisis. panic was not too strong a word to describe the mood. Now that crisis falls on Team MAGA. Trump seems determined not to be helpful. He has yet to figure out how to compete against a black woman two decades his junior and who is his equal, if not his superior, in terms of crowd sizes and fundraising. Rather than championing a traditional campaign infrastructure on the ground, he is clinging to false claims that Harris’ campaign photoshopped a crowd of 15,000 in Detroit and blaming Democrats for the bullet that struck his ear. Privately, the New York Times reports, JustTrump has described Harris using a sexist slur, an accusation Trump’s allies deny. (Trump also took issue with TIME Magazine’s recent cover story on Harris, which includes my reporting, but it’s not clear if he even read it. His issue was the portrayal of Harris, which he said makes her look “beautiful” like his wife, “Melania,” but “not like Kamala.”)
For his part, Musk was more than willing to help Trump, whom he supports. Musk described the border as a “World War II zombie apocalypse” and warned that the United States was plunging itself into an inflation-induced crisis through spending. But it was clear that Musk had his own agenda, including deregulation, calls for less stringent regulations on policing and support for carbon-based energy sources. “They keep civilization running,” Musk said of oil and gas producers.
Seemingly indifferent to Musk’s provincialism, a frightened and petty Trump repeatedly called Biden “stupid” and suggested that he might be operating with an IQ of zero. “There’s nothing on the board,” Trump said. “The stupid threats coming out of his stupid face” could start World War III, the real estate developer said sneeringly. The relationship is clearly hostile and at the forefront, which is why Trump seems determined to get Biden back in the race with baseless claims of a convention coup.
“Do you think Biden could do this interview?” he asked his host, lingering on a man who is no longer his opponent. Trump is unable to completely change his mindset, let alone his broader strategy. He seems determined to continue to litigate perceived slights on his reputation and denounce Biden’s weaknesses. Only occasionally did he return to the woman who will share the next debate with him on September 10.
“She’s incompetent. She’s just as bad as Biden,” Trump said of Harris, who he said benefited from a sophisticated circumvention of democratic norms. “This was a coup,” Trump said. As the stream reached the 87th minute, Trump seemed to remember the true contours of the race. “She’s a radical left-wing lunatic,” Trump said of Harris.
As always, consistency and internal logic are not an option for Trump. And since Harris emerged as his main rival, things have only gotten worse. In recent weeks, Trump has seemed downright desperate to reclaim his former place at the top of the US pecking order. During a 64-minute session with reporters last week, he resorted to more than two misleading statements or lies per minute, according to NPR’s count. The 162 departures from the truth left reporters speechless and his apologists trying to avoid eye contact with skeptics.
So Trump travels the country, seeking the comfort of safe places. It has been 12 days since Trump rallied in a swing state. A weekend rally in Montana, where no Democratic presidential candidate has campaigned since Bill Clinton’s victory in 1992, has puzzled strategists. But even that trip out West revealed his inability to keep everything under control; en route to campaign against an incumbent Democratic senator he criticized for having “the biggest belly I’ve ever seen,” Trump’s plane had to be diverted because of technical problems.
When the X-Session began on Monday evening, numerous polls in the swing states showed that the race was objectively closer than it had been during Biden’s time. The forecasts for the race also adjusted their playing field in Harris’ favor. But then the platform that Musk had bought and turned into a MAGA playground refused to play along.
In a way, Trump’s online fumble was a kind of karmic retribution for the Schadenfreude about a similar conversation meant to boost the candidacy of his former rival, Ron DeSantis. At the time, Trump’s campaign team was unrepentantly agitated about the Florida governor’s rocky start: “Glitches. Technical problems. Awkward silences. A complete failure to launch. And that’s just the candidate.” Well, that candidate is now Trump, and the glitches go far beyond a conversation with the richest man in the world.
Of course, Trump still has time to reclaim the microphone. He has consistently defied the laws of political gravity. Consequences rarely reach Trump’s doorstep. Setbacks rarely last. But Trump has never had a rival who captured the nation’s imagination like Harris. During his 2016 primaries, Republicans never united behind any of his competitors, and his head-to-head race against Hillary Clinton ultimately ended with fewer than 80,000 voters in three states. A pandemic-weary nation chose to switch lanes with Biden four years later, but it was a race that will always come with an asterisk. This cycle, Trump didn’t even consider the possibility of a Republican alternative, even as his invincibility showed signs of wobbling.
Now facing a rival who could make history as the first female president and first woman of color, Trump once again seems unable to find solid ground. He still has enough runway to take off again in his now-repaired plane, but that airfield is shrinking by the day, while Harris is already soaring high.
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