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Donald Trump bizarrely said that his Democratic presidential rival Kamala Harris looks like his wife Melania Trump in his rambling interview with Elon Musk on Monday night.
The former president joined the tech billionaire on X Spaces for what was billed as a game changing “conversation,” but actually ended up being a more than two-hour-long very friendly interview that was instantly beset with tech problems – not to mention questions about Trump’s apparent lisp.
In the interview, Trump launched into a scathing critique of Harris calling her a “terrible” leader, before he swiftly drifted to fawning over her “beautiful” appearance.
“We need smart people, and people that have the ability to lead. She doesn’t have that ability. Can you imagine her with chairman Xi [Jinpin, President of the People’s Republic of China],” he said, speaking with a distinct lisp.
Musk, who remained agreeable throughout the two-hour interview, admitted that it “would be silly”.
“She is terrible, she is terrible,” Trump doubled down. “She’s getting a free ride.”
The former president then abruptly segwayed into talking about Harris’s looks, drawing comparison between her and the former first lady.
“I saw a picture of her on Time Magazine today. She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live,” Trump said of Harris, referring to the latest edition of Time Magazine, which brands Harris’s campaign as “the swiftest vibe shift in modern political history.”
“She looked very much like our great first lady, Melania,” Trump gushed as Musk met his comment with an awkward chuckle and a reserved, “yeah…”
“She didn’t look like Camilla,” Trump said, purposely butchering Harris’ name. “Of course, she’s a beautiful woman and we’ll leave it at that.”
“Right… well yeah, well, you know,” Musk said, before scrambling to change the subject and entering into a monologue about the American dream.
Musk, a self-styled “free speech absolutist”, vowed to use his X platform as a political tool to fight what he calls the “woke mind virus.”
But the hotly-anticipated live-stream was marred with issues from the offset, being hit with a 40-minute delay due to what Musk claimed was a cyberattack.
Eventually overcoming technical glitches, the interview got under way at around 8.40pm ET with Musk peppering Trump with softball questions.
The former president continued to duck and weave past the tech moguls attempts to get him to discuss policy, instead reverting to typical soundbites – including more than 20 false claims, according to a CNN fact check – and attacks on senior Democrats.
Among his familiar untruths were his repeated false claims that Venezuela is sending murderers and rapists to the US and that the ocean will rise an eighth of an inch every 400 years – when it will rise more than that each year.
Trump also gushed that Kim Jong Un “really likes me” after the pair shared dinner together, before declaring him as the “absolute boss” of North Korea.
He also expressed his admiration for Musk’s authoritative leadership style, declaring him the “greatest cutter” for firing his staff if they complain about working conditions.
Musk publicly endorsed Trump’s presidential bid last month, marking a complete U-turn from the 2020 election where he sided with President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
Hours after the Trump-Musk interview, the tech tycoon said that he is also willing to interview Harris ahead of the November election.
“Happy to host Kamala on an 𝕏 Spaces too,” he wrote on his social media platform.
Harris’s campaign team meanwhile responded to the interview with a scathing statement calling Trump and Musk “self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024.”
