Election 2024: Trump holds a rally-like event on X with Elon Musk after tech delays (2024)

Harris-Walz campaign bashes Trump and Musk after interview on X

Trump mentioned dangerous people coming to the U.S. 22 separate times during tonight's two-hour conversation with Musk.

Some of those remarks included debunked claims about immigration.

Trump and Musk ended their conversation at 10:47 p.m. ET.

They spoke on X for 2 hours and 5 minutes.

Trump and Musk are now in the third hour of their discussion.

The event, which was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., started at 8:41 p.m. ET.

A survey conducted by the Major Cities Chiefs Association has found that violent crime decreased during the first six months of this year, compared to the same period in 2023.

Murders and willful manslaughter, for example, declined by 17%, and there were also decreases in rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults, the survey said.

Speaking about the findings, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the data "offers yet another indicator of a substantial reduction in violent crime in major cities across the country."

Trump often attacks Democrats, including Harris, over their handling of violent crime. He suggested during tonight's conversation with Musk and at his rally in Bozeman, Montana, on Friday that there are "rising crime rates" in the U.S.

The Harris campaign made a fundraising appeal amid Trump's interview with Musk on X tonight, taking aim at Musk by calling him "a lackey for Team MAGA."

"It’s not enough that Musk has pledged to donatemillions of dollarsto help reelect Trump," the fundraising email said. "He’s using his purchased platform — one of the largest social media sites in the world — to spread Trump’s unhinged and hateful agenda tomillions of users."

The email asserts that Harris and Walz are "not beholden to billionaires like Elon" in its drive for donations.

Musk claimedthat the livestream’s outage was “a massive DDOS attack on X. Working on shutting it down.”

A DDoS, or distributed denial-of-service attack, is a low-skilled hacker technique that slows or fully stops an internet service by overwhelming it with web traffic. Such tactics are nearly impossible to disprove, but the history of the internet is rife with false claims of DDoS attacks that were actually just websites unready for a large influx of visitors. Musk offered no evidence of an attack or how he might be able to shut down an attack from millions of different sources.

An expert in volumetric DDoS attacks, the most common type of DDoS, which entails simply directing a massive amount of fake traffic at a computer network, said a scan of recent internet traffic showed no signs of an attack aimed at X, which seemed to otherwise work normally. The expert asked to not be named for fear of retaliation.

Trump, who is courting the union vote, praised Musk for firing workers, referring to him as "the greatest cutter" in an apparent reference to the dismissal of workers during organizing efforts.

"I mean, I look at what you do," Trump said.

"I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike. And you say, 'That’s OK, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. So every one of you is gone,' and you are the greatest," Trump added.

Trump appeared to be referring to the termination of at least 30 Tesla workers. Workers from the electric car company had filed a complaint last year with the National Labor Relations Board accusing Tesla of retaliation amid a unionizing drive.

It has now been over an hour since Trump and Musk began their conversation, after a 40-minute delay.

The event started at 8:41 p.m. ET.

Trump, who has been largely critical of electric vehicles, told Musk, Tesla's CEO, that he makes a "great product."

"You do make a great product. I have to say, I have to be honest with you. That doesn’t mean everybody should have an electric car, but these are minor details, but your product is incredible," Trump said.

Trump made similar remarks at a rally on Aug. 3 when he mentioned Musk's endorsem*nt of him for president.

Trump raised some concerns over artificial intelligence, discussing its significant drains on electricity.

Trump began by saying Musk is a "big fan" of AI before describing how surprised he was to discover its energy requirements.

"This is shocking to me, but AI requires twice the energy that the country already produces for everything," Trump said.

"You’re gonna need a lot of electricity, you’re gonna need tremendous electricity, like almost double what we produced now for the whole country, if you can believe it," he added.

"Sure," Musk responded.

Trump again falsely claimed that Congo is releasing people from jail into the U.S.

"They take them out of jails, prisons. They take them out and they bring them to the United States," Trump said.

Trump previously made the claim in May.

More than a year ago, Trump mocked the delayed launch of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign on the same platform where the former president is speaking tonight.

“The DeSantus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!" Trump wrote in May last year.

DeSantis' virtual event on X began about 20 minutes after the scheduled start. The social media company said it attracted roughly 161,000 users.

Trump's virtual interview tonight with Musk was delayed roughly 40 minutes and drew more than 1 million listeners, according to X's public count.

Trump said he plans to go back to Butler, Pennsylvania — the site of the attempt on his life — for a rally in October.

"We’re all set up, and the people are fantastic in Butler," Trump said.

Trump first said during a recent rally in Montana that he would be returning to Butler that month.

Musk and Trump discussed the assassination attempt at length during tonight's interview, with Trump suggesting that his physical positioning around charts displaying data about illegal immigration on July 13 was critical to his survival.

Musk appeared to suggest lightheartedly that the charts, which prompted Trump to adjust his positioning moments before the gunshots rang out, had saved his life.

"Illegal immigration saved my life," Trump joked. "You're right."

Musk's first question was about the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump, who said the incident had deepened his belief in God.

"Now, I’m more of a believer," Trump said.

"It was amazing that I happened to be turned just at that perfect angle," he added. His right ear was struck by a bullet or fragments, the FBI said.

Trump's virtual interview with Musk on X got started a little after 8:40 p.m. ET, about 40 minutes behind schedule after technical issues.

The interview started at 8:41 p.m. ET.

Musk had posted on X after a nearly 30-minute delay to say that the interview would go forward with fewer listeners.

“We will proceed with the smaller number of concurrent listeners at 8:30 ET and then post the unedited audio immediately thereafter,” he wrote on X.

The virtual interview was plagued with roadblocks, including difficulties accessing the event and fake videos of Musk appearing on YouTube.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s highly anticipated online event with Trump was delayed tonight by technical difficulties as some users of Musk’s X app said they couldn’t access the discussion.

The discussion between the two was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. ET but did not begin until more than 40 minutes later.

The tech problems echoed similar difficulties from May 2023, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched his Republican presidential bid on X and was repeatedly disrupted because the site’s servers apparentlycouldn’t handle the surge in traffic.

Read the full story here.

Trump's virtual interview with Elon Musk has continued to stall for 30 minutes now, with no indication of when it will get started after many would-be spectators reported difficulty accessing the live virtual event.

"We tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier today," Musk wrote on X.

The virtual interview was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. ET.

Many would-be spectators are having difficulty accessing Trump's virtual interview on X with Elon Musk tonight.

The interview was scheduled to get underway at 8 p.m. ET.

A pro-Trump super PAC will spend $100 million on advertisem*nts against Harris in the lead-up to Labor Day as Trump works to navigate a new state of play in the presidential race.

The commercials will air in seven Rust and Sun Belt states over the next three weeks and focus on defining Harris as a “soft-on-crime radical who is too dangerous for the White House,” according to a memo from MAGA Inc. strategists David Lee and Chris Grant.

Politico first reported the note to “interested parties” about the massive planned spending.

They will also characterize Harris as “a radical extremist who favors criminals over victims, illegal immigrants over American citizens, and inflation-driving policies over jobs for American families,” the memo said. “Americans might vote for a liberal, but they won’t vote for a lunatic.”

A judge ruled today against independent presidential candidateRobert F. Kennedy Jr.’s effortto appear on New York’sgeneral election ballotthis fall.

New York Supreme Court Justice Christina Ryba invalidated Kennedy’s nominating petition and directed the Board of Elections not to place Kennedy’s name on the official ballot. Supreme Court is a trial-level court in New York state.

Read the full story here.

Brian Schwartz, CNBC and Rebecca Picciotto, CNBC.com

EconomistBrian Deesehas begun advising Harrisas she develops her economic policy plan, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Deese is a former director of Biden’s National Economic Council and a fellow at MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.

Harris has said she plans to release her brand-new presidential campaign’s first formal platform — focused on lifting up the middle class — in the coming days.

Read the full story here.

Reporting from Tempe, Ariz.

Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego was endorsed by three former Republican officials today in his bid to become Arizona's next senator.

Former Scottsdale Mayor Sam Campana, former Phoenix Vice Mayor Peggy Neely and former state Rep. Robin Shaw all threw their support behind Gallego in his race against Republican Kari Lake, citing his stance on reproductive rights.

“Ruben has consistently championed the right of Arizona women to make their own health care decisions,” Neely said at an event in Tempe. “Kari Lake is far too extreme, and she must be stopped.”

Reporting from Chicago

Leaders of multiple Muslim organizations gathered today in Chicago, host of next week's Democratic National Convention, to demand Democrats formulate policies to address the war in Gaza and hate crimes against Muslim Americans during the convention.

“It is imperative that no political party takes the Muslim American vote for granted,” said Oussama Jamal, secretary general of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations. “This election cycle they are more determined than ever to make their voices heard and their votes count.”

Cook County is home to Chicago and the largest population of Palestinians in the U.S. Local activists say having the Democratic convention in Chicago at this point in history is something “the whole Palestinian and Muslim community are talking about.”

The FBI said in a statement today that it's investigating what the Trump campaign has described as a hack of its computer networks by an Iranian group.

FBI officials have not yet characterized what transpired.

The former president's campaign indicated Saturday that it had been hacked by an Iranian group in June, around the same time that Trump was selecting his running mate. The campaign pointed to a Microsoft report indicating that in June an Iranian group linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sent a spear phishing email to a top, unnamed presidential campaign official.

A Harris campaign official told NBC News today, “Our campaign vigilantly monitors and protects against cyber threats, and we are not aware of any security breaches of our systems.”

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group closed 5% lower after the former president made his return to X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, ahead of tonight's interview with owner Elon Musk on the platform.

Trump Media is the parent company of X competitor Truth Social, which Trump founded after he was banned from what was then known as Twitter in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The stock was down as much as over 7% today before recovering somewhat late in the trading session after the Trump campaign sent a fundraising email saying his return to X, where he was once a prolific poster, was only "for a short time." The slide also came after the company on Friday reported a decline in quarterly revenue and a net loss in its first full quarter since going public.

Trump owns the majority of shares in Trump Media, which has experienced highly volatile meme stock-style trading since its public debut in March. Shares in the company are down more than 40% since they briefly surged last month immediately following the assassination attempt on Trump.

Reporting from Pinecrest, Fla.

The only Latina vying for a U.S. Senate seat in November is trying to beat a Republican incumbent in Florida by stressing her moderate stance on many issues, including Latin America policy.

Former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democrat, says families across the state are struggling — and she knows from personal experience. Her mother lives with her and her 24-year-old daughter was also under the same roof until recently. All because housing has become so expensive in Florida, she said.

Mucarsel-Powell said those everyday struggles are what’s driving her to challenge Sen. Rick Scott, a well-funded Republican seeking his second term in a state that’s turned increasingly red in recent years.

Read the full story here.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at the daily briefing today that Biden supports the no taxes on tips proposal for service and hospitality workers.

“This is something that the president supports," Jean-Pierre said. "He supports eliminating taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers by also raising the minimum wage and preventing the wealthy from gaming the system.”

Trump first proposed the policy in June and Harris expressed support for the idea over the weekend.

The hard-right Freedom Caucus is pushing House Republican leaders to condition government funding on passage of new proof-of-citizenship requirements to vote and to create a new deadline that faces broad Senate opposition.

The tactic would risk a government shutdown just one month before the 2024 election, a scenario that some GOP leaders prefer to avoid as it could play into the hands of Democrats politically.

The deadline to avert a government shutdown is Oct 1. Election Day is Nov. 5, although early voting begins before that.

Read the full story here.

Reporting from Scranton, Pa.

Sen. Bob Casey defended Walz's military service days in the wake of Republican attacks after a campaign event with the progressive veterans' group, VoteVets.

Casey, who is up for re-election in November, told reporters, “I think when someone serves as Gov. Walz did for 24 years, I think that service should be lauded and commended, not to be denigrated.”

“Republicans are trying to distract from the real issues in a campaign. So they’re going to, they’re going to bring up any issue they can, because they’re having trouble making the case against Vice President Harris and the case against, to the extent they are trying to make it, with regard to Walz,” Casey said.

Democratic National Convention planners have a tentative schedule in the works that would feature a president or former president each of the first three nights, two sources with knowledge of the planning say.

President Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks on Monday, as is former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Cinton.

Former President Barack Obama is slotted for Tuesday, and former President Bill Clinton is scheduled for Wednesday. Harris is to deliver an acceptance speech on Thursday, and Walz is to speak Wednesday, as is customary. One of the sources cautioned that the schedule was still tentative.

In an interview with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC, Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., discussed Trump's false claims that the crowds at Harris' campaign in Michigan were AI-generated.

Dingell, who attended the Michigan rally and spoke before Harris and Walz went on, said, "Sorry, Donald Trump, you're wrong again."

She added, “I was really there. And I haven’t seen that large a crowd in a long time, and it was great to feel the energy, the enthusiasm."

Trump is set to hold a rally Saturday in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state, which comes as Harris' campaign attacks the former president for his lack of swing state rallies in recent days.

“Vice PresidentHarrisis the only candidate out on the campaign trail in swing states fighting to win this election. Ok by us!" Harris-Walz 2024 spokesperson James Singer said in a statement.

Harris and Walz rallied in several swing state states last week, but Trump was largely off the trail other than a rally Friday in Montana, which is not a swing state. His running mate, Sen. JD Vance, spent the week rallying in many of the same areas Harris was.

Trump's last rally in a battleground state was July 31 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Trump's Saturday rally, which will be held indoors, is scheduled for 4 p.m. ET at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre.

Trump posted to X this morning for the second time since his account was reinstated in 2022 after being banned in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack. The former president's last post on X was nearly a year ago and featured the mug shot he took last year at the Fulton County Jail after he was charged in the Georgia election interference case.

Trump’s first post to X this morning contains a video, without a caption, of a digital campaign ad showing clips that reference his victory in the 2016 election and the series of legal battles he faces.

Trump has posted several times to X since his first post this morning. In one post, he asks, “Are you better off now than you were when I was president?” He also posted and reposted a post from his campaign’s account promoting his interview with tech billionaire Elon Musk tonight.

The posts come ahead of Trump’s virtual discussion with Musk, the owner of X, at 8 p.m. ET tonight.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy urged Trump to stop accusing Harris of lying about the large size of crowds at her recent campaign rallies.

“And you’ve got to make this race not on personalities. Stop questioning the size of her crowds, and start questioning her position when it comes to what did she do as attorney general on crime,” McCarthy said in an interview on Fox News this morning.

In a post on his Truth Social platform yesterday, Trump falsely claimed that Harris shared AI-generated photos of the large turnout at her recent campaign rallies. The Harris campaign denied that the photo was manipulated, and video footage and reporting from her rallies debunk Trump’s claim.

Trump's attorneys filed a legal notice today announcing that their client plans to sue the Justice Department and the FBI for $115 million for alleged “malicious political prosecution” and “abuse of process.”

The filing complains that the FBI’s court-approved search for classified documents at Trump’s Florida estate in August 2022 was improper, as was Trump’s subsequent indictment for the scores of sensitive classified documents that agents turned up during the search.

The Democratic National Committee is launching its first paid advertising blitz since Harris announced Walz as her running mate with an ad on the Las Vegas Strip and billboards in seven key battleground states.

The ad features Walz and Harris that says they're "fighting for you" and images of Trump and Vance that says they're "out for themselves."

More than 80 of the billboards will be displayed in cities across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the DNC said.

After years of condemning Trump for spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories, Democrats are now poking fun at his running mate using a false, vulgar rumor.

The rumor, first posted on X last month, involves a fake passage about a sex act and a couch supposedly in Vance’s 2016 book, “Hillbilly Elegy.”

The lie spread like wildfire, spawning jokes and memes even as the original joke’s author clarified that it wasn’t real and later made his account private. Several news outlets published fact checks of the claim.

Read the full story here.

Walz will hold his first solo event as Harris' running mate tomorrow in Los Angeles where he'll deliver remarks to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) 2024 convention.

Later in the day, he'll deliver remarks at a campaign reception in Newport Beach, California.

On Wednesday, he'll speak at a campaign reception in Denver and in Boston later that day.

On Thursday, Walz will speak at campaign receptions in Newport, Rhode Island, and Southampton, New York.

The Harris campaign and the Trump campaign yesterday butted heads after Trump falsely accused Harris in a Truth Social post of manipulating images of the crowds at her recent campaign rallies.

"[Harris] “A.I.’d” it, and showed a massive “crowd” of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!," Trump said in his post, referring to Harris' rally last week in Michigan.

The Harris campaign denied the photo was manipulated. Video from the events disproves Trump's claim, which comes as the Harris campaign continues to discuss crowd sizes. Walzaddressed the crowd sizes at a rally in Arizona on Friday.

Harris has no public events scheduled today, but she is scheduled to record video remarks for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees’ (AFSCME) 46th International Convention later in the day.

Trump is scheduled to join tech billionaire Elon Musk for a virtual discussion on X at 8 p.m. ET. today.

Trump will participate from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida while Musk will be in Austin, Texas. The format of the conversation is unclear.

The Democratic National Committee said today it is making its first presidential cycle investment in its Democrats Abroad affiliate, underscoring the fact that even top party officials feel the 2024 election could come down to exceptionally narrow margins.

The $600,000 expenditure, shared first with NBC News, is intended to register some of the millions of eligible voters who live abroad and to make sure they comply with state-specific — and often complicated or cumbersome — rules about how and when to cast a ballot by mail when living abroad. Half of the investment has already been allocated.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., told MSNBC yesterday that she's “strongly considering”running for governor of New Jersey but that for now she is "focused on 2024 making sure that we have ... Vice President Harris as our next president."

Sherrill has been floated for months as a contender for governor next year, though there are a handful of other congressional Democrats and local officials whose names have also been floated for possible campaigns.

Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, is term-limited.

At a campaign fundraiser for Harris yesterday, the final day of the Paris Olympics, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the former House speaker, rallied about 650 attendees, telling them: "Democracy is on the ballot ... and we want democracy to win the gold that day.”

Pelosi spoke before Harris, who spoke about the enthusiasm she felt from voters at a series of campaign rallies in battleground states last week.

“People are dancing and singing in the aisles long before we get there. ... They’re showing up because they believe in our country,”she said.