Digital superpower: Musk gives Trump a global stage and reaches over a billion views

Musk: All right then. Hello everyone. I apologize for the late start. Unfortunately, there was a massive attack on our servers where basically hundreds of gigabytes of data were attacked. We think we have overcome most of it. Now it's time to move on with our conversation. But as this massive attack shows, there's a lot of resistance to people just listening to what President Trump has to say. It's an honor to have this conversation. I want to emphasize that this is a conversation. And it's really just meant to get a sense of what Donald Trump is like, as usual, in a conversation. It's hard to get a feel for someone when you don't hear them talk in a normal way. And the reason is that in an argument, nobody is being themselves. So this is aimed at open-minded independent voters who are trying to form an opinion. Do you understand? It's like having a conversation. So, that's what I wanted to do. 

Trump: I'm looking forward to talking to you. We had a great conversation yesterday, as you mentioned. If only we could have recorded and published that conversation. That would have been excellent. And I hope we can have something similar today. Well, I think we will. I'm pretty sure we will. And I congratulate you, because I see you've broken all records with so many millions of people listening. And that is an honor. We consider that an honor. And then certain voices want to silence you. Usually these are voices that have something to say that is constructive, often very constructive. So we have to consider it an honor. But I congratulate you on breaking every record there is tonight. That is great.

Musk: Thank you. Well, perhaps we could start with the assassination, which was an incredible thing. And I have to say that your actions after the assassination were very inspiring. You know, instead of shying away from something, instead of cowering, you put your fist in the air and said: fight, fight, fight! I think that's, you know, the president of the United States represents America. And I think that's America, that's strength under fire. And that's, you know, a big reason why I was happy to support you for another term as President of the United States, because that was just incredibly inspiring. But I mean, what was it like for you? 

Trump: Not pleasant. I didn't realize I had so much blood. The doctors told me later that the ear is a very bloody place when you get hit, but in this case it was probably the best alternative. You could even think about it because it happened at the right angle and it was a hard hit. It was very, um, I guess you could say surreal, but it wasn't surreal. You know, I was telling somebody that there are instances like this, or much less than this, where you feel like it's a surreal situation, and I never felt that way. I knew right away it was a bullet. I knew right away it was in the ear. Yes, yes. And because it hit very hard, but it hit the ear. And I also heard people shooting bullets. Bullets, you know, taking cover, taking cover. Because I got pretty far to the ground pretty quickly. And after I went down, bullets were flying right over my head. So I'm glad I went down. The bigger miracle was that I was looking right in the direction of the shooter. And that's how it happened. He hit me at an angle that was far less destructive than any other angle. So that was the miracle. I'm a believer now. I am a believer, I think. And a lot of people have told me that. A lot of great people have said that to me. But it was amazing that I just happened to be turned at this perfect angle. And it was all because I pointed to a chart on immigration that showed the numbers were so big. I love that chart even more. Maybe this is it. A sign. Maybe that's a sign. You know. 

Musk: It is a sign for immigration. You have pointed out a serious problem. Yes, yes. At this moment. Yes, yes. But Mr. Trump, you know that. But you know, Mr. ... your head, I mean.

Trump: Now, the amazing thing is that the sign that I pointed out was to take down the sign about immigration. And it was literally about an eighth of a second. And after that, it would have been a disaster no matter which way you looked. But it just had this perfect angle that was right at that shooter. A very sad situation. It's a sad situation. As you know, we lost somebody. Corey. A firefighter, a great gentleman. A great, great fighter. He just has a fantastic family and a fantastic man. And a friend of mine came to me and said "I'd love to help the family". And I said "That's great." He said "Do you mind?" I said I didn't mind. And he wrote a check for $1 million. Handed it to the wife. And, you know, she said, "That's really nice, but I'd rather have my husband back." She's great, the family's great. And we raised a lot of money for her and for two other gentlemen who are also incredible people. They've been hit really hard. They thought they weren't going to make it. And they did. The doctors in the Butler area. I'm telling you, they were incredible. They saved those two, and it hit them really hard, both of them equally. My first question was when I heard bullets flying overhead, and I asked how many people were killed because we had a huge crowd there. An enormous one. Thousands and thousands of people. So I asked: How many people were killed? Because I knew there were other shots fired? Yes, for sure. And they said, we don't know yet, but some people were seriously injured. And I have to thank the secret service sniper, they call him sniper. He's an exceptional marksman, that's for sure. And he didn't know there was a problem. And he was able to figure it all out within five seconds. He used a bullet from a very long distance. He was on the opposite side of the court and the podium, and he saw the smoke and the flame of the gun, recognized it immediately and shot right away. And it was a perfect shot from very far away. And if he hadn't done that, Elon, he would have, I mean, if he hadn't done that, a lot of people, a lot more people, would have been seriously injured and killed. So I have to take my hat off to him because that's a surreal thing as well, you know. He's been at it for 23 years and he's never experienced anything like this. And all of a sudden he has to act. And it's a very difficult thing to shoot someone. But he saw the gun, saw the smoke, saw the flame of the gun far away. He did  obviously very good eyes. He has very good eyesight, which you have to have for this kind of work. But he, um, he aimed very quickly. And it was, they say, about five seconds from long range. An enumeration. If all that hadn't happened because the shooter had a lot of bullets, he had a lot of bullets on him, then ... That would have been it.

Musk: I mean, this is clearly an assassination. But I mean, it seems like there were some pretty significant flaws, um, elsewhere in the system like ... there's just no way that, how in the world can a shooter get on a roof 130 meters away? That seems crazy. I think most people wonder how in the world something like that could happen.

Trump: Well, you know, I see it two ways. There shouldn't have been anyone on the roof. There were people there because there were so many tens of thousands of people. There were people who saw him, and there was a woman with a red shirt that had Trump written all over it, and she was screaming. And the guy has a gun. 

Musk: It's like it's too easy. It's just me, I guess. I'm looking at it from my side. And I think a lot of citizens are wondering what the hell makes people think there's a man with a gun on the roof. Yes. Um, and they see it like I do, but somehow it's not addressed. That just seemed crazy to me.

Trump: Well, they will learn from this. The communication between the local police, who had an idea, and a man who hoisted himself onto the roof and barely made it because he pulled himself up and saw the man with the gun pointing it at him. He thought he was probably going to get shot. But, you know, he pulled himself up. As a result, he couldn't reach his gun and fell down, getting very badly injured. His, um, leg, his ankle. As far as I know, he said there was a man up there with a gun. After that, the shooting started very quickly. I think that forced the shooter to maybe act faster. My sons Don and Eric can't believe what happened. But they said a bad shot from 130 yards would hit that target almost every time. They said it was like golf, thinking about a two-foot putt.

Musk: Yes, yes. It's not a difficult shot.

Trump: That's not far-fetched. The secret service agent had hit the jackpot. He had a, you know, triple distance. So, it was a terrible thing. Look, it's hard. I have to say this about the Secret Service when I went down, and, you know, I went down because I think they were screaming, but also because other people saw this happening, you know, you had so many people. One of the miracles was that nobody ran. I mean, when a gun is fired - the crowd control people showed us this - when guns are fired, and this happens in stadiums at a soccer game or any other game, everybody runs away. They call it a stampede like animals. But a lot of people are killed in this stampede. We had more people than some of these big games, and nobody left. You know, you had a small group behind us in the stands, and it was packed. If you look at what happened, they would normally run away. They didn't leave. They saw that I was hurt, they saw a lot of blood and they saw that I went down. And it's almost like they wanted to be with me. There were thousands, tens of thousands of people outside as far as the eye could see. In Butler, there were people as far as the eye could see. And and and. Yes. And a lot of press too. There were lots of cameras watching the whole thing. That's what makes it so different, because normally things happen that aren't good, but you never have a picture of it. Here we have all these cameras recording it. So, you know, kind of amazing. But it was also interesting that nobody fled and nobody stormed. And there were some people behind me. They stood up and they looked like, I mean, I'm telling you, you want them in a foxhole with you. I want to meet some of these people because it's so different from what you've heard. But I was so down on them. But the Secret Service guys, the bullets were just flying over my head. You could hear them whizzing and ... and these guys were jumping on me, you know? And a young woman, Kate, jumped. They were moving so fast. And I can tell you that takes tremendous courage. Now there was a lack of coordination. Of course, everyone realizes that the building should have been covered. And yes, I mean, that was the big thing.

Musk: I mean, if you look at the aerial shots, the building would be an ideal target for a sniper. I mean, it's like you could pick and choose which is the favorite if you. So the target is an assassination. What's your favorite spot in this building? This building would be number one.

Trump: That would have been it. You couldn't wish for a better location. No, that would have been it.

Musk: That was the place. Do you know what people think when the local policeman, who by the way, really did what he was supposed to do. He couldn't hold back anymore. And then when he peeked his head straight over this guy who was standing with a gun to his head, and when he fell back down, he hurt his ankle very badly. But he made the calls. However, he was released very soon. So you believe that the man ran to his location with a gun, which he had carefully planned. He ran to the scene and started shooting quickly. And maybe that's why he ... Well, he kind of missed her. I mean, you know. Yeah, but it could have been a much bigger problem. But he definitely would have hit it if you hadn't turned your head. So it was a very close thing. It was a ...

Trump: It would have been a miracle if I hadn't turned my head. Yes, yes. I wouldn't talk to you now, as much as I like you. Exactly, I wouldn't, yes. I wouldn't talk to you.

Musk: Perhaps you would speak to me from another realm.

Trump: Yes, yes. That's right. We would speak from a different perspective, but it was a, you know, it was a very horrible experience. Butler Hospital did a really good job. Um, the doctors were so good. Everybody was so good. There was one mistake. If anybody knew about it, because people heard, you know, it was just an uneasy feeling that somebody was around, you know, that story. Now it's come to that. Yeah, yeah. And if someone could have said, because they often said, you know, there's going to be a thunderstorm or something, because I think I've done over 300, I think I've done a lot more than that. But we've done a lot. And a lot of times they say, sir, could you wait ten minutes, please sir, could you wait 20 minutes? There's a thunderstorm or lightning or something. That's right. And that happens a lot. And that would have been the perfect time for it. But it wasn't coordinated. That was the problem. Now.

Musk: What I find admirable is the fact that you can't fake bravery in such circumstances. Courage is instinctive or it is not instinctive. It's not a rehearsed action. I just want to say that I think a lot of people admire your bravery under fire. And. Yes.

Trump: Thank you very much, I really appreciate that. I don't think I was thinking about that. I just wanted to get up and stand up. I want to let people know that I felt good when they were on top of me and covering me, even covering me a lot and being very brave. But I wanted to get up. I said I wanted to get up. And they wanted to, you know, they had everything there. They did. They wanted to stretch it. I didn't like the gurney and I knew I was hit in the ear, but I knew I wasn't hit anywhere else. They felt that I was hit somewhere else because there was so much blood, and they were sure I was hit somewhere else. And they said "Sir, you, you, you hit more than just the air." I said, "No, I was hit in the air. I want to get up, let me get up. So I stood up and the crowd didn't know what to think. I mean, there were so many people. And you could see they were confused. They didn't know what to think. And I wanted them to know that I was okay. It was very important for me to let them know that. And they were thrilled. They. They saw the after. They weren't thrilled when I got up because they didn't know if I was still alive. You really couldn't tell when I stood up in front of the hand, in front of the, you know, the fist in the air. They didn't know if I was still alive. Nobody did. And, uh, when I held up my fist, they were. They were just relieved and happy and excited. And the place went crazy. It was pretty amazing. It was a horrible thing, but it was incredibly moving.

Musk: Yes, yes. Um, well, and I mean, speaking of the slide that made you turn around, that saved your life, that was really the illegal immigration slide. Maybe that's a topic worth talking about. It is. It was this poster.

Trump: Illegal immigration saved my life. You're right. But it had to be right at that angle. I mean, that's a great thing. I say saved by illegal immigrants. But the incredible thing is that you have to be in that exact angle when you're talking about the odds. But the incredible thing is I used the chart less than 20 % of the time. It was just an instant. It's always to the left of me, never to the right of me, and always at the end of the speech. So here we have it. It's on the right side, not the left. It's at the beginning, not the end. And even the people who put it up weren't prepared and did a good job. Luckily they put it back up straight away. But I looked to my right and the ball and the ball whizzed by and hit my ear. So, it was amazing. But considering the odds and knowing that you wouldn't normally use it, that I wouldn't normally have that thing, it would have been a whole different story. I would say it's an act of God. It's a miracle that this has happened and I'm honored by it. I feel honored by it. Now.

Musk: What were you about to say about illegal immigration before you were rudely interrupted? 

Trump: Well, I was. I'll say how good the numbers were. By the way, we're going back to Butler in October. We have everything set up and ready to go. The people in Butler are fantastic. It's a great, great area. Great. They're incredible people, like the three that were killed in Cory's case and the other two whose families I've gotten to know a little bit, and the families are great. But we're going to go back to Butler. And I think I'll probably start with, like I said, not to be so terribly interrupted, but yeah.

Musk: So rudely interrupted by an assassination attempt. But no, but the map ... Some people don't have a chart.

Trump: Elon, the chart shows that in my last week we had the best numbers on illegal immigration, meaning that the number of illegal immigrants was the lowest. You've seen the chart. It's become a pretty famous chart. But that was the lowest ever recorded. I was really, really proud of those numbers. And then you see what happened with these people, with Kamala and Joe. You see what happened? They just let it go. I wanted to stay with the Mexico policy. I had all these different policies. That was so good. People like Tom Homan and Brandon Judd from the Border Patrol, these are all people who have been on TV. They said it was the best numbers we've ever had. We had so many different checks. Catch and release in Mexico. Not in the United States. The United States had the catch and release system. We had it in Mexico. We had so many things. We had things where a lot of people coming in there had contagious diseases. We had everything behind us. If you have a contagious disease. I'm sorry, but we can't do that. We can't let you into the country. So we literally set records, and I just showed that, and I used it sometimes, and in this case I'm glad I used it, I can tell you that. But they were still fantastic numbers. But I will always sleep with this card. I will go to sleep with this card. This card was very important. It's very important for many reasons. I mean, would it be right to say that you support legal immigration? But we also need to stop illegal immigration, especially unchecked illegal immigration, because that's not the same as saying that all illegal immigrants are bad. 

Musk: I believe that most illegal immigrants are actually good, but you can't tell the difference unless you scrutinize who comes across the border. Is that right? Is that the point of view that you  represented?

Trump: I'll put it quite simply. You must have entered legally. You must be vetted because Kamala was the border patrol agent. Now she's denying everything she did. She says she stood up for the border. We're going to be strong. Well, she doesn't have to say it. She could close it right now. They could. They could do something right now. It's terrible. No tax on tips. And suddenly she makes a speech and says there will be no tax on tips. I said that months ago. By the way, they did the exact opposite. Not only did they tax tips, they hired 88,000 IRS agents, and many of them were assigned to check waitresses and caddies and all that for tips. They have a policy. They had a policy. They really had it out for you. And we really harass people in a terrible way. And then all of a sudden she says what I said for political reasons, and I think that's terrible. And I think it hits her really hard too. These people are frauds. Now. They also say that they did a good job on the border. We had the worst numbers in the history of the world, not in the history of our country. There has never been a country in history that has had a disaster like this. We had, I think, and I think you think so too. You know, you hear 12,000,013, I think it's over 20 million people that have come into our country, many of them from prisons, from mental institutions. Or a larger version of that: Insane asylums. And many of them are terrorists. And I'm telling you, they're not just coming from South America, they're coming from Africa. They come from all over the world. They come from Asia. They come from the Middle East. They come from countries that are stupidly and horribly bombing Israel on October 7th. They come from all over the world. And, you know, it's so sad, October 7th, because it should never have happened. It's so sad when you look at Ukraine. It should never have happened. We have a flawed government. They are flawed people and they are not the ones who should be running it. But when you look at it, the best thing is the border. Because you had millions of visitors a month. Then she gets up and tries to pretend she's doing something. She had three and a half years. By the way, they still have five months to do something, but they're not going to do anything. That's just talk. She's incompetent and he's incompetent. And frankly, I think she's even more incompetent than he is. And that's saying something, because he's not very good.

Musk: Yes, yes. No, I think a secure border is essential. I mean, you're really not a country if you don't have a secure border and and and ... and secure elections, you know.

Trump: Absolutely secure elections. So we absolutely need a real border, otherwise we can't function as a country. And our services, you know, our essential services are overwhelmed in many cities. And as we said earlier, I think a legal immigration process that is smooth and efficient and well done, and I'm speaking as someone who is a legal immigrant. Um, and I think that's, I mean, one way to think about it is, who do you want on your team? Who do you want on Team America? And I think we just want to say, okay, we want to let people in who are going to be great contributors to our society and our economy, and who do you want on the team? And that's not to say that, in my opinion, most illegal immigrants are actually not good, hard-working people. That's not my opinion. But some are not. And then there's this kind of adverse selection when someone, uh, you know, when someone, uh, you know, um, uh, has a career in theft or robbery. I don't understand why it takes them so long to get here. Um, because we're such a targeted environment. I mean, why aren't they? Why aren't more people who have careers in, you know, bad things coming here sooner? Because it's like. I mean, it's a piece of cake to rob houses in LA or New York. Compared to other parts of the world and, um, and a lot of places in America. If, if ... if you try to stop the person who's robbing you, you'll get arrested. 

Musk: So that's how it is. That is correct. 

Trump: I mean, what happens to crime, and our police are so good, but they're not allowed to do their job. But I have to tell you, Elon, I hate to say this because it's such a downer to say. I hate to say it, I hate to say it, but there are a lot of people who just shouldn't be here. I think it's a much larger number than you think. They're releasing people from their prisons again. And if you ran any of these countries that they come from, you'd have all of them. An example of that is Venezuela. Their crime rate is down 72 %. They're taking their drug dealers with them. They're taking, frankly, their prisoners. They're emptying their prisons. They're taking their criminals, their murderers, their rapists, and they're delivering them to us. That is what is.

Musk: What Castro did.

Trump: Yes, he did. On a much smaller scale. You know, it was a much smaller scale. But it's a huge scale, because it's being done worldwide. But here's what's happened. Crime has gone down all over the world. And wait until you see the numbers that we have. You know this is migrant crime. That's the crime that it's going to be. And I saw it today in New York where someone was stabbed with a knife, the girlfriend of a man who was watching in New York in one of the shelters and started pulling out knives. And bad things happened today, but it happens every day. These are rough people. These are people who are in prison for murder and all kinds of things, and they release them into our country and tell them if you come back, we're going to kill you. We will give you the death penalty or kill you. So they don't want to come back. But they are rough people. They're criminals who make our criminals look like nice people. And it's terrible what they're doing. And she's responsible for it, because now she's trying to say she had nothing to do with it. And she's such a liar because she was called a border patrol agent on day one. And it was in all the newspapers. She's the border patrol commissioner and she wasn't even there. She was in and out of a place that had nothing to do with the problem. She was probably in and out because she was getting a lot of pressure, but that had nothing to do with the problem. But she was the border patrol agent, and you can't let her get away with her disinformation campaign. Now she's trying to say that she wasn't, uh, that she wasn't really involved. And the whole thing is terrible. She had full responsibility. She could have closed the border without him. He didn't know what he was doing anyway, so he wouldn't have even known what happened. They could close the border. He wouldn't even know the difference. But the fact is, she was a border patrol agent. But if you don't have to call her that, you can just call her. She was in charge of the border, and the border was the worst ever.

It just doesn't work. It's terrible. Whether it's a question of intent or competence. Either way, we don't have a secure border and people are flocking to us in droves, so sometimes it looks like a zombie apocalypse in World War Z. And sometimes you have to ask yourself, is it real or not? So I, you know, because you see things and you wonder: is this real? So I went to the border at Eagle Pass and I saw it for myself in Texas, and I was like, Okay, it's real. It's like I'm seeing this in real time. I just posted the video live. I just flew down there one day to see: Hey, is this made up or real? I just see people streaming across the border, and I have to say that at least the people I saw didn't look friendly. So these are people watching my video and saying, "Hey, these people don't look friendly. They don't look particularly friendly. These are people that Elon, you wouldn't be the same if you had to walk across the street and look these people in the eye, because these are tough people. These are really tough people that are coming. And I know rough people, and these are people we don't want in our country. And, you know, the caravans come in and who does that? It's the heads of the countries. And you would do it and I would do it. And they'd all say, oh, what a terrible thing to say. The fact is, it's brilliant for them because they're taking all their bad people, really bad people, with them. And I hate to say this, but the reason why the numbers are much higher than you think is because they're also taking their unproductive people with them. These are not people who are going to kill you. We have enough of them. But these are people who are not productive. They're just unproductive. I mean, for whatever reason, they're not workers or they don't want to work or whatever. And these countries are getting rid of, in many cases, the unproductive people in the caravans, and they're also getting rid of their murderers and their drug dealers and the people who are really brutal, and they're coming into our country on a scale that we've never seen before. And right before I went on the air, I saw an ad. I walked here and I saw an ad from Kamala saying that she's going to provide border security. Where has she been for three and a half years? For three and a half years?

Musk: You have 20 million illegal immigrants.

Trump: I think so. It's a terrible thing. Yes, it is. I think, frankly, this is a fundamental existential issue for the United States. And if we have four more years of open borders, it's going to get worse. It's going to get worse than the last three and a half years. I'm not sure we have a country. They don't have a country anymore. Last point, Ellen. When they come in, you're going to have 50 to 60 million people from all over the world, not just South America. You know, we think of South America. We're thinking of Honduras and El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. You know, the four of them. But it's not that it's just the four. They come from everywhere. And I had to limit myself to Mexico. This is a very important point. When I went there, I asked myself: where do people actually come from? It's as if almost nobody comes from Mexico. No. Not from Mexico. It's just, it's just, it's just the border. It's just about the border with Mexico. But the people that come here. It's, it's the earth. The rest of the earth. And America only makes up about 4 or 5 % of the Earth's population. It would only take a couple percent of the rest of the earth to overwhelm everything.

We are already overwhelmed. We are overwhelmed. You had to see the news about New York tonight. And I love this place. And what they're doing to it is horrible. And all the courts are doing is trying to focus on Trump. Okay, let's focus on Trump, who has done nothing wrong. I'm complaining about a rigged election. Elon, it's unbelievable what happened. You're from Africa, from the Congo. They're from the Congo. And recently 22 people came to us from the Congo. And they are murderers and they are being dropped. They drop them, they get them out of the prisons, which is very expensive, you know, to maintain the prisons, although they don't do too much for maintenance, I can tell you that. But they take them out of the prisons and bring them to the United States. They deposit them in the United States and say never come back or you'll be executed. And they don't want to come back, but they won't come back. But they come from Africa. They come from Asia. They come from the Middle East. They come from South America, they come from everywhere. And there are a lot of really bad examples. It's just a global thing all over the world. And it's just not possible for the United States to absorb all of the earth's inhabitants or even a few percent of the rest of the earth's inhabitants. It's just not possible.

So we are going to carry out the biggest deportation in the history of this country and we have no other choice. Otherwise, we will have a country. What they have done to our country. Just think of Venezuela and some other countries where crime has gone down 50, 60, 70, 80 %. Same thing. You would have, you would be. I can tell you that Venezuela has not gotten rid of all of them. They got rid of about 70 % of their really bad people. Their prisons are being used about 50 % by the United States. Same with other countries. Some are 30 %. Some are 50 %. They're all different. But the bottom line is they're all going to be at 100 %. Why wouldn't you adopt them at 100 %? And they are doing it right now while this third rate phony candidate is running. Remember, I won. I beat Biden. He failed miserably in the debate. And, you know, some people said, oh, gee, that's too bad. It's too bad he did so poorly, otherwise I would have done well in the debate. The first night they said, wow, one of the CNN staffers said that was the best debate performance I've ever seen. And two days later, they weren't talking about it anymore. They just said it was bad. But that's fine. That's the way I'm treated. And that doesn't bother me at all. What I can tell you is that we can't have a Democrat. We can't have her. She's incompetent. She's as bad as Biden. Yes. He hasn't given a single interview since this whole hoax started, and you can say what you want. This was a coup. This was a coup against a president of the United States. He didn't want to go. And they said we can do it the nice way or we can do it the hard way.

No, that's me. They just took him behind the shed and shot him. Yeah, yeah. Oh, what they did to that guy. And I'm not a fan of his. And he was a terrible president, the worst president in history. And one of the reasons he was so bad is because the Israeli attack would never have happened. Russia would never have attacked Ukraine, and we wouldn't have had inflation, and we wouldn't have had the chaos in Afghanistan, if you think about it. If you take away a few of these events, it's a different world. We wouldn't have either, no, inflation was caused by oil.

Musk: Yes, yes. No, no, I think you hit an excellent point here, which is that when other countries that you know think about invading or doing bad things, when they think about it, they think about, okay, what is the American president going to do? And are they afraid of the American president? Or is there somebody they don't respect and they don't fear? And I think they do, they do, would they be right? I mean, look at the footage of the assassination. They say "OK, you know, President Trump says don't mess with me. I mean, that's like, whereas I think people aren't going to be intimidated by Biden, and they obviously weren't intimidated by him at all. And they're certainly not going to be intimidated by Kamala. And you really have to look at this in the context of global security. If the American president is someone that the evil dictators are afraid of, that makes a big difference to security in the world.

Trump: So I had a good relationship with Putin, despite the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax that went on for over two years. A hoax cooked up by Hillary Clinton and Adam Schiff. Some just bad people, you know, just sick people, frankly. I mean, Schiff is a sick person. He'll probably end up being a senator. It's hard to believe. The whole thing is hard to believe. But, you know, they're also putting our country in danger with this. When they make up stories and you have to fight them for a long time. But I know Putin very well. I got on very well with him. He respected me. And that's just one of those things. And we talked a lot about Ukraine. It was the apple of his eye. But I said I would never do that. Never do that. You know, I shut down Nord Stream 2. That was the big oil pipeline, the biggest, I think, the biggest pipeline in the world, running through the whole of Europe. I shut it down. Biden came, and then they say I was a friend of Putin and I loved Russia. No, he even said to me once "If you are my friend, I would hate to see you as an enemy." I shut down his pipeline, the biggest pipeline there was to finance. And then this pathetic president comes in there. And the first thing he did, one of the first things he did, was he shut it down. He shut down the Keystone XL pipeline, our pipeline that would have employed 48,000 people. Pipeline workers shut it down. That was a big job that Obama wouldn't allow. I allowed it the first week because it was jobs and it was moving oil. By the way, this is much more environmentally friendly because it's underground. It's not a truck catching on fire, and it's not a train catching on fire. But remember. He shut down the XL pipeline, the Keystone XL pipeline. He's shutting it down and approving the Russian pipeline.

Musk: Yes, that doesn't make sense. It's like it's inconsistent. Certainly, but I mean, I think it's worth making clear to listeners that ... the immense importance of whether or not the president of the United States is intimidating and how much that matters to global security, because there are some really tough guys out there. And if they don't think the American president is tough, they're going to do what they want to do.

Trump: I know every single one of them. And that means something. It puts the whole world in danger. Elon, I know every single one of them, and I know them well. I know Putin, I know President XI, I know Kim Jong UN from North Korea. I know every single one of them. And I tell you, people will say, 'Oh, that's terrible. He said, "I'm not saying anything good or bad. They're at the top of their game. They're tough, they're smart, they're vicious, and they're going to protect their country. Whether they love their country - they probably do." It's just a different form of love, but they will protect their country. But these are tough people who are at the top of their game. And when they see a Kamala or a Biden Sleepy Joe, they can't believe it. They can't believe this happened. All these things you see now, all the horror you see in Israel, they're all waiting for an attack from Iran. Iran would not attack, believe me. You know, when I was there. And I say that with respect because I think we would have gotten along well with Iran. I don't want to do anything bad to Iran, but they knew not to fool around. Iran was broke because I told China, if you buy oil from Iran, it's all about the oil. That's where the money is. But if you buy oil from Iran, you're not going to do business with the United States. And I was serious. And they said, "We'll do without it." They didn't buy oil. So did other countries. If you're going to buy, you're not going to do business with the United States. And they were at a point where they had no more money for Hamas. They had no money for Hezbollah. They had no money for any of these instruments of terror. And it was amazing. There were even articles when I left, which is actually hard to believe, especially considering what's happened to our country. Our country is so bad right now. It's a completely different place. We were respected. Think back to four years ago. We were respected so much that when I said don't buy oil, they didn't buy oil, but they had no money and Israel would never have been attacked, it wouldn't have had a chance. And again, I said to Vladimir Putin, "Don't do it. You can't do it, Vladimir." You do it. It's going to be a bad day. You can't do it. I told him I was doing something like that, and he said, "No way." And I said, "Gone." And it was the last time we had that conversation. He would never have done it. I got on well with him. I hope to get on well with him again. Getting along well with them is a good thing, not a bad thing. I got along well with Kim Jong UN when I met with President Obama just before he entered the country. You know, it's kind of a ritual. I sat down with him and we talked. It was only supposed to be for a very short period of time. It was a long period of time. I asked what the biggest problem was, and he replied "North Korea". I solved this problem very quickly. It was nasty at first, with Rocket Man and all the other things. But suddenly I got a phone call.

Musk: With some epic tweets from ...

Trump: Yes, yes. They were no, they were epic. Everything he said. He said he had a red button on his desk. I said I have a red button on my desk too, but my red button is much bigger and my red button works. And then I called him Little Rocket Man, when Little Rocket Man ... Anyway, here's the bottom line: all of a sudden I got a call from him and they said they wanted to meet. They want to meet me. And we did meet. As you remember, we met in Singapore. We also met in Vietnam. And I got on with him. It was great. We weren't in any danger. But President Obama thought we were going to get into a war, a nuclear war with him. And I can tell you that he has a lot of nuclear material, too. He has a lot of nuclear weapons. He can do a lot of damage. So, yes, I ... I mean, that's because people like Kim, you know Kim Jong Un, you respond to strength, not weakness.

Well, and he and I, we had a good relationship. You know, I remember meeting him and we went on his land. No one had ever gone on his land before me. I wouldn't say let's bring the Secret Service back in. I wouldn't say they were thrilled when I did that. I stepped on his land and it was like that. It was an amazing time. But we weren't in danger with him because I always say we have enemies without and enemies within. We have some really bad people in our government and people who control the people. I mean, I would name names, but I don't. I really don't want to give them credit, but we have some really bad people, and I say they're more dangerous than Russia and China. If you have a smart president, a president who gets it, we're not in danger from those countries because they need us and they need our help. I mean, we forced Obama's hand. If you think about it, Obama and Biden and Bush, in some ways, to be fair, brought Russia and China together. And if you study history, the first thing you learn is that you can't let Russia and China get together. But they also have Iran and North Korea, if you look at it. That is, as they say, the axis of evil. We used to have the axis of evil. What we have here is a modern axis of evil. These are powerful countries that are very strongly nuclear-oriented, which is the biggest threat. You know, the biggest threat is not global warming, where the oceans are going to rise an eighth of an inch in the next 400 years. You're going to have more oceanfront property, right? The biggest threat is not that the biggest threat is nuclear warming, because we have five countries now that have significant nuclear power, and we need to prevent something from happening with stupid people like Biden. You know, Biden did something with Russia. There was no chance he was ever going to invade when I left and then? After I left, they started deploying large armies on the border with Ukraine. That's right. And I looked at that and I thought he was doing that because Putin is a good negotiator. I thought he was doing it to negotiate. But then Biden started saying stupid things. For example, he said it can be a NATO country now, but Putin, Russia, has said as long as NATO exists, we will never agree to that. And we say that right at the beginning. And we have done and said things through this president with a low IQ, a very low IQ. By the way, 30 years ago he had a low IQ, but now he may not even have an IQ. There's nothing on this board that goes that low. He said things that were so stupid that if I had been there, this war would have had zero chance. No chance at all. He said the exact opposite, the exact opposite. And it's so sad, because a lot more people have been killed in Ukraine than you read about. You don't read about how bloody it is and how catastrophic. Listen, in the two armies alone, you've lost half a million people, and Ukraine is having a hard time. Ukraine. I don't know if you've seen the article recently, but it's true that you don't get the real story. But if you think about it, Russia is gone. You know, Russia defeated Germany with us, and they defeated Napoleon. You know, they've been around for a long time. They're a big fighting force. And that's very unfair. And Ukraine no longer has enough men. They are now using young men and very old men to fight. And we are in a very bad situation, and I will not be the only one to blame for this, but I can tell you that I could have prevented this. And a smart president could have prevented it. It wouldn't have happened. but we had a man who actually made it happen. That made it even more widespread. It was so bad. The words that he used, the stupid threats that came out of a stupid face that he used, I said, this guy is going to give us a war. He's going to do something to us. And I'm telling you, this can lead to World War III. It can lead to World War III. The Middle East can lead to that. There are numerous places now that could end up in World War III for no reason at all.

Musk: I think you are right. I think people underestimate the risk of a third world war, and when you look at the risk of a global thermonuclear war, it's game over for humanity. And that's something that people have. I think after the end of the Cold War, people have become complacent, but they've forgotten that there are a lot of nuclear missiles out there right now that have target parameters for the United States and other countries.

Trump: And one of the things we're going to do is erect an iron dome over us. You know, Israel has it. We're going to have the best iron dome in the world. We need it, and we're going to make it in the United States. But we're going to have to protect ourselves because it only takes one crazy person to start something. We will have protection, and why shouldn't we have an iron dome? Israel has one. Some other places have one that, frankly, nobody knows about. But Israel has it. We will have an iron dome. But you know, for me, that's so important, the most important thing. But despite all that, the elections are coming up, and people want to hear about the economy and the fact that they can't buy food because they don't have enough money to buy food, inflation has killed them. Food prices have gone up 50, 60, even 100 % in some cases. And this stupid government has allowed that to happen. And that's a disgrace. And that's what I think people care about the most. The border is very important to them. And we've talked about the border at great length. It's nice to have a forum like this where I can discuss something at length. And by the way, do you think Biden could do this interview? Do you think Kamala could do this interview? They wouldn't consider you. They couldn't. So they don't need Elon. They don't need Elon asking them questions. It's pretty sad to think that someone who does this for a living can't answer questions or is afraid to give an interview, and in her case, with a very friendly interview. She has all friendly interviewers. It's nice, yeah, but the most important thing now is the economy, Elon. And yeah, I mean, I see nuclear power as the most important thing, but a lot of people don't. A lot of people don't understand that. But it doesn't have to be, if I understand it correctly, that's all you need. Because if I were president, you wouldn't have this kind of problem. But what really pisses them off is what Kamala and Biden have done to the economy. Inflation is a disaster, inflation. It doesn't matter what you earn. Inflation has eaten you up. If you're a worker or you're just middle income, you can't afford, you know, four or five years ago people were saving a lot of money. Today they're using up all their money and borrowing money just to live. It's a terrible thing that's happening. And we will put an end to it quickly. Very quickly.

Musk: Yes, yes. A lot of people just don't understand that. I don't understand where inflation comes from.

Trump: Inflation occurs because the government spends too much money, because the checks never bounce when they are issued by the government. So when the government spends far more than it takes in, the money supply increases. And when the money supply increases faster than the price of goods and services, that's inflation. So we really need to reduce our government spending and I think we need a commission to look at government efficiency to determine where we are spending money that makes sense. but where doesn't it make sense? And we need to live within our means. I think we're increasing the deficit about 1 trillion dollars every hundred days right now. And the interest payments on the national debt now exceed the defense budget. It's in the order of 1 trillion dollars.

Musk: That is interesting.

Trump: And it's growing and growing. I rebuilt our military, largely rebuilt it, and did a great job, which was very important. You know, we had jets, we had fighters that were 70 years old and bombers that were 70 years old. And we did a great job. Then, by the way, we gave 85 billion of it back to Afghanistan, if you can believe that. We gave them 85 billion. You know, they are one of the biggest sellers of military equipment in the world. They are selling what we gave them. That was one of the most embarrassing days in the history of our country. But if you think about what's going to happen to the economy. We need to lower energy prices. Energy triggered it. The price of gasoline. Your cars don't use too much gas. So you have a good feeling. And you make a great product. I have to be honest with you. That doesn't mean that everyone should have an electric car. But these are just little things. But your product is incredible. But the gasoline, Elon, is the price of energy. Not just gasoline. The cost of heating and cooling your home needs to come down. It's gone up 100 %, 150 % and 200 %. And that needs to change when it changes. And we're going to drill, baby, drill. They stopped drilling and then resumed drilling because they went back to the Trump policy. But if they win the day after they take office, we're going to bankrupt this country because they're going to have energy policies that are not sustainable, like wind power. They will have nothing. And I know you're a big fan of the eye. And I have to say that, and this is shocking to me, everything is going to take twice the energy that the country is already producing. So we're going to have to build a lot of power if our country wants to be competitive with China, because that's our main competitor. You need a lot of power for the eye. You're going to have a huge demand for electricity, almost double what we're producing now for the whole country, if you can imagine that.

Musk: Yeah, sure. Um, well, going back to this basic thing that people try to make sound complicated, but it's not. But inflation is caused by excessive government spending. Um, where do you agree that we should look at government spending and maybe set up a commission on government efficiency to try to make spending reasonable so that the country lives within its means, as a human being does.

Trump: The waste is unbelievable and nobody is negotiating prices. There used to be a lot of people building jets, and now there are two companies that will probably try to merge at some point. Yeah, I mean, I went through it like the Air Force, just a thing like Air Force One. In one of the first documents, I was asked to sign a general auction. Sir, would you please sign this document? And what is that? Air Force One, that's with Boeing, that's basically two airplanes and the price was 5.7 billion dollars for two airplanes. Well, they're sophisticated. They're even more beautiful than your airplane. Okay, but much more sophisticated. They're very. I'm not going to say what's on them, but they definitely have a lot of stuff on them. But it's 5.7 billion dollars. 

Musk: I am listening.

Trump: That's a crazy number. But I said I'm not going to pay 5.7 billion dollars. I'm not going to do it. I said, "Who made the deal?" Obama and his people. I said, "Then I know the deal is not good. I'm not going to do it." And over the course of about four weeks, when I said I'm not going to do it, I lowered the price by $1.6 billion for the exact same airplane, except we had a nicer paint job, if you want to know the truth. But for the exact same airplane I got, I saved one and said to Boeing, man, you guys must be making a lot of money if you can lower the price by that much. But now I hear they're going back to the Biden administration and wanting big cost overruns because they see those stupid suckers in there and they're going to end up getting some of the money back. But I cut them $1.6 billion for the exact same airplane. And now you can multiply that by thousands of other items. Multiply it by that. The numbers are astronomical. I agree with you.

Well. I mean, I think it would be great to have a commission on government efficiency to take a look at these things and make sure that the taxpayers' money, hard-earned money, is being spent in a good way, and I would be happy to serve on such a commission. I think it would be great because it would be fun.

Well, you're the best editor. I mean, I see what you do. You come in and just say you want to quit. You go on strike. I'm not going to name the company, but they're on strike, and they say that's fine. You're all gone. You're all gone. So every one of you is gone. And you're the biggest one. You would be very good. Oh, you would love it. But if you look at Argentina. Well, I would love to do that. By the way, congratulations. I just looked at the number of people listening to you and I'm chatting. We call it a conversation, but congratulations. That's very good. I mean, it's great. And you're an interesting personality. You know, the new head of a country called Argentina. And that's him. He's a big, you know, he's great and he's a big mega-fan. You know he ran on MAGA, and he took it to the extreme that he ran on MAGA. And from what I hear, he's really doing a great job. It's called "Make Argentina great again". It worked perfectly. He came in and bought a lot of hats. He brought them with him, but he's doing a great job. He really cut it. And I hear they're starting to do pretty well. Inflation is going down. You knew they had about 2.000%. They had inflation that was out of line with normal inflation. They had the real thing. But we'll have that soon enough. We have, I think, the worst inflation in the last 100 years. They say it's 48 years. I can't believe it. I think we have the worst. A lot of things that are supposed to be part of it are not in it, you know.

Yes, yes. Well, that's simply because the government spends too much money and not only does it not spend taxpayers' money effectively, but it has so many departments that you can't even list them all. Um, and what Milei is doing is he's cutting government spending. He's simplifying things. He's, uh, introduced, you know, regulations that make sense, and we're seeing a huge increase in prosperity in Argentina overnight. But it's also a lesson for the United States, which is that Argentina used to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Um, you know, in the 30s and 40s and because of bad government policies that ruined the country. Take Venezuela, for example, which should be incredibly wealthy. They have phenomenal reserves of everything, oil, everything. And they should be prosperous. But when the government gets it wrong, it impoverishes the people. So we shouldn't be complacent in the United States and take our prosperity for granted, because if we have bad government policies, we can bankrupt the country. And people should just keep that in mind. Don't take prosperity for granted.

Well, think about education. So we're at the bottom of every top 40 list. We're number 40. number 38. Norway, Switzerland, Sweden or other countries are rated as good. Actually, China is pretty close to the top. They're in the top 6 or 7, but we're near the bottom of the rankings, 38, 39, 40. In other words, terrible. And yet we spend more per student than any other country in the world. So we spend more. And what I'm going to do, one of the first acts, and here I need an Elon Musk, I need someone who has a lot of strength and courage and wisdom. I want to close the Department of Education and move education back to the states where states like Iowa, where states like Idaho, you know, not every state is going to do well because states that basically don't do well. Look at Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. He, um, he's terrible. He's doing a terrible job. So he's not going to do much with education. But out of the 50, I'd bet 35 would do well. And 15 or 20 of them will be as good as Norway. You know, Norway is considered great. Um, you can name them. I mean, they're just so good. Some of these countries are so good. But if you go to some of these really well-run states, you know, we have states that don't know what debt is. We have states that have low taxes and no debt. They're all working. You know, they're really well run. And maybe they have certain advantages in terms of location, the land or the sun, the sun and the water and everything else. There's a lot of advantages that some people have, but if you take education back to the '50s, there's going to be some that don't do so well, but they're going to be forced to do better because it's going to be a pretty bad situation. But if you think about it, yeah, you're going to have some of those states. I bet you'd have 30, 35 states. It's going to be a lot better. And you know what? It's going to cost less than half of what it costs in Washington. And these people don't care about the students in these, you know, far-flung states. And it would be incredible. Yeah, yeah.

Musk: I think you are right in the sense that if states have to compete with other states, people will naturally migrate to the states where things are better.

Trump: Well, like California, like we said, it's a poorly run state that I could go through. I have so many friends in those states, even though they're Democrats, I hate to call certain states, but Illinois is poorly run with Pritzker. He's a real loser. But, you know, some of these places are just poorly run. But, you know, it's almost going to force them to run better. And they're not going to do it well at first. But you're not going to do worse than you're doing now. And I would say that you would cut your costs by 50 or 60 % and have a small monitor. 

Musk: You want to make sure you teach English as an example. Give us a little English. Right? Yeah, sure. Right.

Trump: No, no, I mean, I mean ... some of these governors are so bad off. I mean, they have so many people moving out of state that they should get the U-Haul salesman of the year award because they drive so much U-Haul. It's really amazing. People are on the move. As a business person, isn't it amazing that they can even survive like Illinois? So many people are leaving, and you wonder how they can survive. I mean, how can they survive? I saw that you left California and moved to Texas. Texas is doing a great job. But I wonder how these states can survive when big companies, as you know, have just left California and moved to Texas. How can these big states survive when they're losing so many businesses and their taxes are already very high? You know the taxes are some of the highest taxes. You almost wonder how they manage to keep going. And in many cases, the governors are not doing a good job, and these are high crime places. You wonder how they can just keep going? It's not a good situation. I mean, I think the only thing that's going to force some of these states to change is if they risk bankruptcy and aren't bailed out by the federal government.

Musk: Right. Well, you will have that. It will get you.

Trump: Remember that area in California where there was something like that, where I guess somebody had sticky fingers and stole a lot of money. And, uh, they went into some kind of chapter and it was very unpleasant for a while. But now it's probably the most popular place in all of California. So something like that may have to happen at some point. But the problem is you can't penalize people who lend money to the state when you have incompetent people like a Pritzker. The family didn't want him in the family business, and then he becomes governor of Illinois. So, what is he going to be? Is he going to be a good governor? And, you know, you have people. I could name every one of them. I've met every one of them. And some are very good, some are just terrible.

Well, I think the bigger point here, as you said, is that a lot of people are concerned about the economy. A lot of people are concerned about inflation. And inflation is effectively a tax on people who save money. And for people who work day in and day out, it's just a form of taxation. And if we can solve the government spending problem, we'll solve the inflation problem, which means people will have a better standard of living. And that's a really big deal.

Well, the people who are the worst off are the ones who did it the way they were taught, in their youth and in their young lives and all their lives. The people who saved money didn't get any interest on their money and inflation destroyed them. And frankly, it would almost have been better if they had done nothing of the sort. I mean, these people have been absolutely decimated. And we're going to bring those people back and help them. We need to bring the prices down. When I look at bacon costing three, four or five times what it did a few years ago, when you look at some groceries and grocery stores, people can't believe it. They used to be able to buy a whole cart. And today, a lot of people just don't have the money. They go in and they can't buy anything. They look at them. Yes, it's a price shock. It's called a price shock, isn't it? I think it comes down to, like I said, two things: When you see the government spending too much money, you solve inflation, which improves the standard of living of the average citizen. And then ... if you deregulate, so you have sensible regulations. Because many of the regulations are nonsensical and cause extreme costs for no reason. Unless you have effective deregulation like Reagan, who did a great job of deregulating in the 80s. But it's been 40 years since we've really had anybody. I mean, we've made some progress during your tenure. But I think there's an opportunity to make radical progress with sensible regulation. And, and, and if those two things. Yeah, those are the big deals.

We have set a record. We did more deregulation and more restrictions on different businesses than any other president I can remember. I had a rule that for every one you hire, you have to get rid of 10 or 12. And in all of that, we made radical cuts. And a lot of that is being pushed back by this government. And we've made radical cuts to things that weren't necessary. But we had everything under control, we had the best economy ever, maybe even in the world. And then Covid came, and we had to focus on it, and nobody knew what it was. And I always say I have good grades in economics. Good grades for the military. We took out ISIS. We did so many different things. We rebuilt. But, you know, I never got the credit that we really deserved for our work with Covid. We never got the recognition, but we were, if that hadn't happened, we were a gift from China from Wuhan, uh, from Wuhan, the Wuhan labs. And I always said it and it proved to be true. But if that hadn't happened, we could have started reducing debt. We wanted to cut taxes further. I made the biggest tax cuts, and we were going to cut taxes even further for middle-income people, not just corporations, but we did it for corporations because they're the ones that gave us the great job numbers. But we were really reducing the debt. And, you know, we're sitting on the biggest pile of liquid gold in the world. Bigger than Saudi Arabia. Bigger than Russia. And we were going to drill and make so much money. We. We're going to supply Europe with oil. I had stopped the Russian pipeline and we. We will supply them with oil and gas. We were going to, we were going to, we were going to. Make a fortune. And then Covid came and we really had to divert. Then when they came, we kept a lot of companies. Alive. If I hadn't done what we did, we would have had a 1929-type depression. But the problem is that when Biden came in, he got trillions of dollars and just started spending it in stupid ways. They didn't need it anymore. We've moved on from the bad period where everybody was dying and not feeling well. Interestingly, a lot more people died of Covid during his tenure than during my tenure. And we really took the brunt of it. But people don't realize that more people died during his tenure than ours, but that distracted us from what I wanted to do. But we had the best for almost three years. We had the big share. And you probably know that better than anyone. Many of your friends told me that the best years we ever had in business were during the Trump years. And they also said that African-Americans, Hispanics are so incredible, they have the best Asian-American women and men, young people without degrees, young people who have degrees from the best colleges, from MIT, from the Wharton School, from all the great colleges. They did better at Harvard. And the people without degrees did better. And everyone was happy. And then Covid came and we had a ... we had the problem that they were spending trillions and trillions of dollars that they were wasting. They shouldn't have taken money, then we wouldn't have inflation destroying our country now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, absolutely. I mean, I should probably say something about my views on climate change and oil and gas. Um, because I think they're probably different than most people would assume. I think that we shouldn't denigrate the oil and gas industry and the people who have worked very hard in those industries to provide the economy with the energy that it needs. And if we stopped using oil and gas now, we would all starve and the economy would collapse. So I don't think it's right to denigrate the oil and gas industry. And the world has some need for oil and gas, and it's probably better for the United States to meet that need than some other countries. And that would contribute to prosperity in the United States. At the same time, of course, I think that over time we should move to a sustainable energy economy, because at some point we run out of resources, I mean, when oil and gas run out, they're not there anymore. It's not infinite. Um, and there is some risk. I don't think the risk is as high as a lot of people claim in terms of global warming, but I think if you increase the parts per million in the atmosphere long enough, at some point it just becomes uncomfortable to breathe. People don't realize that. If you exceed a thousand parts per million of CO2, you get headaches and nausea. We are now in the order of 400. We are adding, I think, about two parts per million per year. So that means we still have a bit of time. But we don't need to rush, and we don't need to stop farmers from working their fields or people from eating steaks. That's right. Basic things like that. Like leaving the farmers alone. 

Musk: I agree. How crazy is that?

Trump: I mean, there are farmers who are no longer allowed to farm and have to get rid of their livestock. And the whole world is a bit crazy, but it has largely been inspired by us. I've heard, though, that the fossil fuels are needed to make electric cars and generate the electricity they need in the power plants. And, you know, there's no escaping that at the moment. I mean, one day you might be able to, but I'm doing it here. We have between 100 and 500 years left. A lot of it hasn't even been found yet. But there are huge ones, like ANWR. I authorized ANWR in Alaska. Ronald Reagan couldn't do it. Nobody could do it. Everybody tried. Nobody could do it. I got it approved. The first thing Biden did was defund it to get rid of it. He ended it. His secretary went in and ended it. And what a disgrace. This is ANWR. This is bigger. Or they think it might be bigger than Saudi Arabia, in Alaska it might be bigger than Saudi Arabia. But they went in and they ended it. And I'll make it real quick, because it's not just big for Alaska, I mean, you're talking about economic development, which for the United States, I mean, this is, they say, bigger than Saudi Arabia or the same size and pure really good stuff. And, you know, they're finishing it. So I think we have maybe hundreds of years left. Nobody really knows. But during that time, somebody will come along. That will be very good. Yes, yes.

Musk: Yeah. Well, I mean, my estimate would be a little more aggressive, but it's not like we're all going to die in five years. That stuff. That's obviously bullshit. Um, but I mean, if you just look at the parts per million that's increasing every year, you get to 2 or 3 parts per million of CO2 per year. I mean, I think it's problematic when it accelerates, when you go from 2 or 3 to, say, five, and then there can be situations where there's a step change, an increase in CO2. And I think we don't want to get too close to 1000 ppm because then it's actually uncomfortable to breathe because it's just uncomfortable to live in 1000 ppm CO2. That's a danger to industry. That's right. It's just that you get headaches and so on. So it's not pleasant even without global warming. So we don't want to get too close to that. But I mean, I think we just want to evolve, and if, I don't know, in 50 to 100 years we're, um, I don't know, mostly sustainable. I think that will be fine. So it's not like the house is immediately on fire, but I think it's something that we need to move towards and move forward. All in all, it's probably better to move there faster than slower, but like I said, without denigrating the oil and gas industry and without causing hardship in the short term, I think it can be done without people still being able to eat a steak and drive gas cars and it's fine. I don't think we should demonize people for it, but I think we should just move towards sustainability in general. I think that solar energy is going to be a big part of energy production on the planet in the future, and the trend is definitely going in that direction. And so you get solar energy and combine it with batteries. Since the sun doesn't shine at night, of course, you can use it to charge the electric cars, and you have a long-term, sustainable solution. And you know Tesla is trying to move things in that direction. And I think we've made a lot of progress in that regard. But if you look at our cars, which we like, we don't believe that protecting the environment, that caring about the environment should mean that you have to suffer. That's why we make sure our cars are beautiful. If they drive well, if they're fast, they're, you know, sexy. I mean, they're cool. In fact, I made this sexy joke: model S, model three, model X and Y spell sexy. That's probably the most expensive joke there is. Um, but, you know, I just, I don't know, I like corny humor, you know? So, um, and, but, but I'm a big fan of, like, let's have an inspiring future and let's work towards, you know, a better future. And we can do this without demonizing.

Trump: That's right. I'm fine. You know, it's very interesting. You used the word global warming. Now people talk about climate change because there are some places that are going up and so on. So you've gotten yourself into a little bit of trouble with the word global warming because not every place is warming. Some places are going in the opposite direction. But, you know, I'm waiting for you to come up with solar cells on the roofs of your cars and on the trunks of the cars, and it just seems like something that you're going to introduce at some point, I'm sure you'll be the first, but it seems like a solar cell on the roofs, you know, on flat surfaces, on certain surfaces could be good. Yeah, at least in certain areas of the country where the sun shines, or in the world where it shines. But I would, I would think, and I have no idea because that's not my world. But I think that might be something interesting. But what I don't understand is that people talk about global warming or climate change, but they never talk about nuclear warming. And to me that's an immediate problem because, as I said, we have five countries. We have a big nuclear power. And, you know, probably some others are getting there. And that's very dangerous. That's where you need a strong American president, because you don't want to have that proliferation, but there are five countries, and there are more and more, you know, China is much lower than us right now, but they're going to catch up to us faster than you think. They are much lower. Russia and we are number one. And I mean, we're sort of tied, and China is way behind, but they're developing so fast that you're not surprised when you hear that. Eventually they will catch up, maybe even surpass it. But for me, the biggest problem is not climate change. It's not that. And everything is a problem, but for me it's just a matter of time. The big problem is nuclear power. The power of nuclear energy is so great. And when I talk about preventing the world, I'm going to prevent World War III. I will do it, but the truth is that you have to do it. Because this is no longer tanks going back and forth firing at each other. This is a scale of destruction and power like no one has ever seen before.

Yes, yes. And then there's the bad side of nuclear power, namely nuclear war. Very bad side. But I also believe that nuclear power generation is underestimated. You're right. And it is true that people are afraid of nuclear power generation. But it is one of the safest forms of power generation. That is simply a big misunderstanding. And if you look at the injuries and deaths that are caused by, let's say, I mean, I don't want to single out coal mining, but just any kind of mining. And there are a certain number of injuries and deaths per year. And you're comparing that to nuclear power. Nuclear power is actually much better. So it's underestimated as a source of electricity. And I think it's worth thinking about. But there are so many regulations that people can't do it. Um, so that, you know.

Musk: Maybe they need to change the name. The name is a rough name. There are some areas like ... 

Trump: Yes. For example, if you see what happened with branding, you have to rename it. We have to give it a good name. We'll name it after you or something, you know? Um, no. Hey, it's got a branding problem. You know, when you see what's happening, you have a branding problem. When you see what happened in Japan where they say you can't go on the land for 3000 years, have you ever seen that? And in Russia, where they had the problem, where a lot of bad things happened and they have a problem, they say in 2000 years people will start occupying the land again. They know it's pretty bad, but it's not true. But you're right about that. It is amazing.

Musk: Actually, it's not that bad. So. after Fukushima happened in Japan, people in California asked me if we were worried about a nuclear cloud coming out of Japan. I said, "No, that's crazy." Actually, it's not even dangerous in Fukushima. I even flew there and ate locally grown vegetables on TV to prove it. And I donated a solar water treatment system, you know, a solar energy system for a water treatment plant, and, um.

Trump: Yes, but you haven't been feeling so good lately and that worries me. 

Musk: No, no, but, I mean, I'll just ... I'm fine, you know, it's like, uh, you know ... Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, but now they're full cities again. So it's really nothing that, you know. It's basically not as scary as people think. Yeah, yeah. Um. Let's see. I mean, are there any other issues that we should address? Um. Oh, you know, something like law enforcement? I think, you know. Well, we have to worry?

Trump: What they have done to this country is obvious. Yes, yes. Well, we just won the big case in Florida. The Biden administration did something that's never been done before in this country, which is to go after the political opponent, which is me, with this nonsense, which is just nonsense. And we won the big case in Florida. But they always picked a judge and a jury. And they used local prosecutors. They use the local attorneys general like Fannie, you know, Fannie spelled "f a n I E". Funny. And it's all just a big scam. And it all goes on from there, like in Manhattan. One of the top people in the Justice Department went in and ran Manhattan, ran the state. The Letitia James deal was run by a Justice Department person. Biden. They've never done anything like this before. And they set a very bad precedent. It's called lawfare warfare. It's a terrible thing and it's never happened in our country. It happens in banana republics and third world countries, but it's never happened. And the incredible thing is that it's driven my numbers up because people have seen that luckily I have a platform like you or, to be honest, a conversation like this where I can talk about it and people understand it. I mean, when you fight for the integrity of elections, you end up getting impeached because you fight for the integrity of elections. And when the day comes that you can no longer fight for the integrity of elections, you no longer have a country. So what happens? They go after their political opponent, me. In my opinion, Biden is a, you know, close to vegetable stage. Yes. I saw him on the beach today and I was like, why would they let that happen? The man could barely walk. Why would they let him do that? Does he have a political advisor who thinks this looks good? He thinks it looks good because it looks so bad, and it's ridiculous. I mean, and he's been doing this for a long time. He can't lift the chair. The chair weighs about three ounces. It's meant for kids and old people, and he can't lift it. The whole thing is crazy.

That is clearly not the case. I mean, it's clearly the case that we just don't have a president. You don't have a president, and SHE will be worse than him because she's a liberal from San Francisco who destroyed San Francisco. And as Attorney General, she destroyed California. You talk about location, and we talk about the sun and the water and all that. There's nothing better than California. She destroyed that. She was originally there. She was the original in San Francisco. She was the first attorney general in California. What she did to California is ... Well, you know that better than I do. You just left California for many of those reasons. And what she did to the crime, to the no-cash bail, where you kill somebody. I mean, there are states where you kill somebody and you're released immediately. I mean, you don't even have to line up. And then they never find the people unless they kill again. And then they let them out again. Our country is becoming a very dangerous place. And she's a radical left-wing liberal from San Francisco. And now she's trying to protect him. Now she looks like she is. She wants to be more Trump than Trump, if that's possible. 

Musk: I don't think that's possible. But she wants to be more Trump than Trump. 

Trump: Yes, she wants a war. I think she wants to release all the prisoners that are in custody. And some of these guys are really bad, right. That was just released today. She doesn't want to build the wall, even though the walls are working. Walls and wheels. You know, in your organization, everything you do is obsolete. Well, not the tunnels, but everything else is obsolete. Even your rocket ships are obsolete after a month. You find a better way. The only thing that isn't obsolete is a wall and a wheel. And the wall. You know, I built hundreds of miles of walls, and that's why we had such good numbers. I was planning on adding 200 miles. We bought it. We could have sold it within three weeks, and they would have sold it for $0.05. That meant I said wow, that means they actually want to have open borders. She wants to have open borders. And now she's acting like she's hard on the border. That's such a lie. Yeah, yeah. That's just not true. That's just not true. And everyone knows it's not true. It's a shame that you can say that.

No, I mean, what's obviously happened overnight is that you've rewritten history and made Kamala sound like a moderate when in fact she's far left, very, very far left. The left is worse than Bernie Sanders. She is considered far more liberal than Bernie Sanders. She's a far left lunatic. And if she's going to be our president very soon, very soon they're not going to have a country. And she will go back to all the things she believes in. She's in favor of lessening the burden on the police. She's for a ban on fracking. Zero. And now she's suddenly saying, "No, I do." I really want to see fracking the day she gets into office. The day she takes office, she will end fracking. And by the way, if people didn't think that the crazy people who really believe in, uh, wouldn't vote for her, you know, um, like, like the Palestinians and Israel. It's so anti-Israel and bad for both. Biden did something that was actually impossible. Both sides hate him. You know, both sides. That was a difficult task. Unification.

Yeah no, I mean, I mean, Netanyahu came to address a joint session of the Senate and the House of Representatives and I was there and, and Kamala stood him up, you know what that says? I think that's highly disrespectful. And I say if you're Jewish or you believe in Israel, if you're a person that you know is very pro-Israel. If you vote for you, that's worse than Biden. And Biden was bad. But if you vote for you, you should have your head examined. And tonight, as we're doing this, I'm seeing reports that they're expecting an attack tonight or tomorrow with hundreds, maybe thousands of missiles. You know, their Iron Dome, as they call it, as we all call it. But their shield that they've built can be flooded. We will use the term "swamp" which is appropriate, but they are flooding it by launching enough missiles. They know this better than anyone. If they launch so many rockets that they can't defend themselves, they'll just destroy the whole place. And that's what some people think they want to do. And we have no leadership. These people have no respect for the United States of America. And I'm telling you, she's going to be even worse than HE is, because SHE believes in being radical leftist. And he wasn't.

Musk: I think you're right. 

Trump: I mean, it's really important that the public who may be hearing this look at Kamala's track record a month or so ago and ask themselves, is this a track record that you agree with? And I think if you're an independent moderate, you would definitely disagree with that because it is. Her behavior was far left, and we're just seeing an overnight propaganda attempt to rewrite history and make it look like Kamala is a moderate when in fact she's not. Well, you and your running mate approved and signed the law. Tampons in boys' restrooms. Yes. That's all I have to listen to. Tampons in boys' restrooms. And that means she believes in it too. I mean, she chose this man because he was closest to her. A lot of people thought she would choose the opposite, but she chose an anti-Israel, far-left candidate. But she's far worse than Bernie Sanders, they say. If we have you as president, if we have a Democrat as president at this moment, I don't think our country can survive.

Musk: I think we are in big trouble with the Kamala government, to be honest. And that's my honest opinion. And I think it's really important that you win this election for the good of the country. And I mean, that's just my opinion. You may have seen it already, but I got a letter from the EU Commission asking me not to spread disinformation during this discussion we're having. And there are a lot of attempts to censor and even impose censorship on Americans from other countries. And, um, what do you think of that?

Trump: Well, I know the European Union very well. They take great advantage of the United States in trade. As you know, we protect them through another forum, NATO. But if you build a car in the United States, you can't sell it in Europe. You just can't sell it. It's impossible. The same is true for our farmers. It's very difficult for our farmers to do business. You know, we have a deficit of 250 billion dollars, which people don't know. It sounds so nice, the European Union. But let me tell you, they're not as tough as China, but they're bad. And I let them know it. And that's probably why they let us know that they don't treat our country well. We're defending them, you know, with Ukraine. So we're in with 250 billion and they're in with about 71 billion. And they're the same size. If you add up the European countries that are about the same size as us in terms of economy, they're at much greater risk. They are right there. We have an ocean separating us from the enemy, which in this case is Russia, which used to stand for the Soviet Union. But let's assume that they are close enough. And then what happens is that they're in with about 70 million, I think. I think even less than that billion. It's about 250 billion, and it could be a lot more. And I say, why don't you want to compensate? Why don't they pay what we pay? And it's much more important to them because they're close. I mean, they're all kind of in that place. We're not. But they should be. They should be. And I did it with NATO. At the time, there were only seven countries out of 28 that had paid into NATO. And the United States was subsidizing the United States was subsidizing NATO. Huge subsidization of NATO. And I said, I went in and I said, you have to pay. If you don't pay, we will no longer defend you. I had to take a lot of criticism. But do you know what happened? Billions and billions of dollars poured in. And ... you know. I think a lot of the public is unaware of the fact that the United States pays a disproportionate share of NATO spending. And then we get taken advantage of on trade. So think about that. 

Musk: Well, I ...

Trump: The purpose of NATO is to defend Europe, and this raises the question: why does the United States pay disproportionately more for the defense of Europe than Europe? That makes no sense. It is unfair. And that it is appropriate to deal with it. You know, when you talk about cost-cutting and savings and everything else, there's nobody who thinks the situation in Ukraine is worse than I do, because I know it would never have come to that. I know Zelensky. He was very honorable to me because when they started the Russia hoax and said I had a phone call with him. He said it was a perfect phone call. It was a great phone call. He could have boasted about it and said it was very threatening. He said, no, it was a very nice phone call. I called him to congratulate him on his victory. And you end up getting charged because these people are crazy. You know, I was talking about the difference between the people on the inside and the enemies on the outside. In many cases, the people on the inside are more dangerous to our country than the Russians and the Chinese. If you have a smart president, you're not going to have problems with them. You're going to do things. Yes, yes. Now they have taken advantage of us in unbelievable ways, but you will do things with the right person.

Musk: Yes, yes. Well, I think it's obvious that you're a champion of free speech, because during your first term as president, you were attacked relentlessly every day, often very unfairly, with, you know, false attacks. And you didn't try to shut down the media, you didn't try to impede their freedom of speech. And I think that says a lot.

Trump: Well, the good thing is that you and I and some people, very few people, can spread the word. Even though sometimes it's difficult because they don't want to print it, for example, because we're having a great conversation right now. Kamala wouldn't have that conversation. She can't because she's not smart. She's not a smart person, by the way. She can't have this conversation. And we don't even need to talk about Biden. I mean, he couldn't have this conversation. He would have given up halfway through the question. He would have walked away. He would have said "Where am I? Where do you want me to go?" Be that as it may. 

Musk: But no, he wouldn't allow that. That is true. Not many people would have that conversation. But you know, we cover a lot of ground. But the nice thing is that we can have a conversation. And yes, I'm able to get it out without because I'm treated fairly. This is a really important point.

Trump: They can actually have a conversation with you. Yes, yes. It's nice, isn't it? And you can't have a conversation with Biden or Kamala. It's as if that's not possible.

Musk: That is true.

Trump: It's like talking to an NPC, so it's just impossible. But think about it. We need one man or one person who is incredibly astute to stop all the nuclear danger and all the dangers that I'm talking about. And I got along with all these people, I got along with Kim Jong Un, we had dinner, we had everything, and he really liked me. And I got on very well with him. By the way, he's the absolute boss over there. A lot of people said, "Do you think he really does that?" Yes, yes. I can tell you that I've seen things that you don't want to know. He's the boss. But we had a good relationship, and he doesn't like Biden. He thinks he's a stupid man. He said he's a stupid man. At least he says what he thinks. But, you know, you're not allowed to say that in this country. But I guess you are. You should be allowed to say it if it's true. But we need really smart people, and we need people who have the ability to lead. And you don't have that ability. Can you imagine that? Now you know the chairman very well. Can you imagine you and him negotiating or even standing together? That's it. The whole concept is ridiculous. It's terrible. She's terrible. But she gets a free pass. I saw a picture of her in Time magazine today. She looks like the most beautiful actress who ever lived. It was a drawing, and she actually looked a lot like our great First Lady Melania. She was looking. She wasn't looking. She didn't look like Kamala. That's true. But of course she's a beautiful woman. So let's leave it at that, shall we? Yes, yes. 

I think that people in America want to be excited and inspired about the future. They want to feel that the future will be better than the past. And that America will do things that are greater than in the past, that it will reach new heights that will make us proud to be Americans and that will make us excited about the future. 

Musk: Um. They want the American dream back. 

Trump: They want the American dream back. That's more important than anything else. It's like not having that today because people just got screwed over. You see incompetent people running our country. You know, the Biden thing is very interesting. People just thought he was incompetent. And when I confronted him, I asked myself, is that really true? It was. Yes, it was. It was just absurd. Um, but I think there are some great projects we could do. I mean, I think we could build a base on the moon. We could send American astronauts to Mars. We could build high-speed connections between our cities that are more advanced than anything else in the world. So people have fast transportation. It's possible to solve traffic with tunnels, isn't it? We've already made a lot of progress in Las Vegas on that. And, um, you know, and ... and just do things that are exciting and inspiring and make the future seem better than the past.

I saw what you did in Vegas, and let me tell you, it was incredible. I've seen it. I got a great look at it, and it's incredible, which you know, it's incredible. And you could do that again and again. You could do that anywhere. It's ... It's profound. Yeah, yeah. You don't even need a lot of structure, provided you're in the right area.

Musk: No. It's quite simple. It's amazing. So. And I think we could do some things, like in China, incredible high-speed trains between cities. But I think it's actually possible with, with tunnels, if it, with deregulation, with, with an ability where it's actually legal to do the tunnels, then you could have high-speed tunnels that are actually better than, than, than anything else in the world for high-speed transportation between cities. And that would be something that Americans could say, "Wow, okay, we have something that's cooler than anything else in the world." That's the kind of thing that makes you proud to be an American.

It's much safer than trains on the surface, where there's a danger. You know, with people, with crazy people, it's much safer, much better. And it's sad, because I've seen some of the best trains. I find that fascinating. And I've seen the systems and I know how they work. And the bullet trains, as they're called, run incredibly fast, incredibly comfortably and without any problems. And we don't have anything like that in this country. Not even close. And it doesn't make sense that we don't. It doesn't make sense.

Trump: Yes, yes. And I also think that there's, you know, I'm just talking about the overregulation, but I think that people generally understand that there are more laws and regulations every year. And if there's no process to clean them up, eventually everything becomes illegal. And that actually slows things down. It slows down the development of new technologies. I mean, if you take something like this. There's room for reform at the FDA to speed up the approval of drugs that could help save lives and improve people's lives. Um, and I've been working a lot.

That is difficult. You know, we got the number down to the lowest it's ever been. And we got, uh, therapeutics approved and the FDA, people can't believe how fast that's going, but I, I took them on. I don't think they like me too much, but I've gotten things approved and the FDA has come up with numbers that they wouldn't believe. And it's a very bureaucratic group. In many cases, it's a good group of people. I've met a lot of them, but I pushed them really hard for Regeneron for so many different things that were really pretty amazing. But the FDA takes too long. It takes 12 years to get a product approved. I got it down to four and got some things done very quickly. But that's really something we need to work on because it takes too long. It just takes too long.

It simply takes too long. And that's where you end up with licensing. But it's just that it takes years instead of doing something that I think could potentially only take months and improve people's lives. I think you know that, but I would like to point out again that there needs to be an active process to reduce rules and regulations, because otherwise they keep getting piled on every year and the arteries harden and eventually everything becomes illegal or takes forever. And then we freeze as a society, we just don't move forward, and that's a really big deal.

You know, Elon, going back to the FDA for a second, I did something that's called the right thing to try. This is where you can get in. And if you're terminally ill, you can use a space age, uh, you know, medicine or whatever. We have the best doctors and the best labs in the world. We really do. But people would go to other countries because they couldn't use the product even if they thought it worked because it goes through the FDA. I got it approved where you can basically look, nobody wanted it, the doctors didn't want it because of the liability. The country didn't want it. Our country because they didn't want to be sued. These people are terminally ill. The insurance companies didn't want it. And the pharmaceutical companies didn't want it. I got everyone into a room and we made an agreement that they wouldn't be sued. And they didn't want it on their record either. If someone is terminally ill and dies after taking a drug, they didn't want it on their record. So we created a second, separate list. If someone was like that, it wouldn't be seen as a negative. Yes. And as you know, we did it. We saved the right to try. They've been trying to do that for 58 years. And it sounds easy, but it wasn't because, I mean, the insurance companies, nobody wanted it. But we did it. Somebody signs, you sign a document that you're not going to sue the insurance companies and the country. You're not going to sue anybody. And we did it. And we're saving tens of thousands of lives. That's right. To try it out. Hopefully you'll never need it. But if you do, you don't have to go to Asia. You know, if people had money, they would go to Asia. They would go to Europe. If they don't have money, they go home and die. That's what happened. They would go home and die. 

Musk: Yes, yes.

Trump: Well, I mean, and actually, to give you a little bit of encouragement here, is that a drug that is approved in Europe, where there are an insane amount of regulations, should of course also be approved in the US. I mean, they have more regulations than we do. So why is a drug approved in Europe and not in the US?

That's crazy. Well, we've done it. We've done something that people have actually been trying to do for 50 years but just couldn't manage. And I've done it. And it's, uh, it's really something special. But you're right. Some people go to Europe because a drug is not approved here, but is approved in Europe. And it's a drug that would generally work. It's pretty crazy. Exactly. You are right.

And I think as long as people are properly informed about the pros and cons and know that these are the risks and this is the risk. And like, you make your own decision. Um, that makes sense. Well, I think it's kind of a conclusion, and by the way, I'm looking at the numbers. 

I think that the number of people who will hear this conversation in the coming days and weeks will be in the hundreds of thousands.

That's what they say. Yes, yes. That's good. Well, it's an honor. I'm just asking: are you better off now or were you better off when I was president? Nobody is better off now. We've done polls on this and nobody is better off now. Inflation has killed them. And they also feel very insecure. You look at what's happening with a lot of different things. Look at the riots we had at the end of college. I mean, that's ridiculous. But with all the riots, they just feel unsafe. And now they feel really unsafe because there's a new form of crime. It's called migrant crime. I call it Biden migrant crime. Maybe I should call it Kamala migrant crime.

When violent criminals get off scot-free. Um, and in the meantime, New York spends enormous resources on law enforcement, and I think the reasonable public looks at that and says, what the hell is going on? This is obviously an abuse of the legal system. You know, the legal system is supposed to protect the public from violent criminals. And it should be obvious that the public can make their own decision about who should be president, as opposed to some legal case.

Start with this precedent, because it can continue with the next one. I mean, this is a very bad precedent. What they do to, you know, go after their political opponent. And that's all it is. It's an attack on your political opponent. And then you get a judge who, you know, is a strong Democrat. And I'm being kind when I say they're crooked as hell in a lot of cases. But when you put a judge in an area where Republicans get 3 or 4 % of the vote, you have a jury made up of people who hate or hate Republicans. But it could go the other way, because in areas where they hate the Democrats, it could go the other way. And you get into a Pandora's box. It's a very dangerous thing for this country and a very dangerous thing even for the state. New York City is losing. The city of New York and the state are losing a lot of business because of what they did to me, because these people are saying, "We don't want this to happen to us. This is not a justice system. You have an unjust justice system that's costing New York State a lot of money. People are leaving, businesses are leaving, and they're not coming back. So all of those things are important. But the economy is the most important thing now. And we can stimulate the economy so fast that people will come back. We will get rid of inflation.

Musk: I think there are a lot of possibilities. Definitely, definitely, definitely.

Trump:  And I would just like to congratulate you. You have done a great job. You are. You definitely have a fertile mind. You know, we can talk. You and I can talk about rockets.

Musk: It's nice of you to say thank you.

Trump: Well, I appreciate that. This endorsement meant a lot to me. To be honest, not all endorsements mean that much. Your endorsement means a lot to me. And, you know, we have a phrase "Make America great again." It's pretty simple, but it really says we want to make America great again. And we can do it. We can do it now. But if we have to suffer for another four years like we have for the last four years, I'm not sure the country can ever come back. It's that bad. It's that bad.

We have a lot to do. I think that's a very real risk.

Trump: And if you look at my track record, I'm actually not one that people try to paint me as a far-right guy, which is absurd, because I make electric cars and, you know, solar panels and batteries and help people with the environment. And, uh, and I supported Obama. I stood in line for six hours to shake Obama's hand when he was running for president. So it's not like I'm a dyed in the wool, longtime Republican. I describe myself as, you know, historically, a moderate Democrat. But now I feel like we're really at a critical juncture for the country. I think a lot of people thought that the Biden administration was going to be a moderate administration, but it's not. And obviously with Kamala, we're going to see an even more left-leaning administration. That's my honest opinion. I mean, their reverence. That's literally everything. I mean, she was raised as a Marxist economist, her father is a Marxist economist. You can google that. I mean, we're not making this up, you know. Um, that's how she was brought up. We just want to have a prosperous future. And I think we're at a critical point right now and I think America has reached a fork in the road and that's true. Um, and I think it's going to take the path as you take the path to prosperity. And I think Kamala is the opposite. And that's my, I mean, that's my honest opinion. I'm going to I'm going to be attacked like crazy. And, you know, I've been through some litigation myself. But I'm just trying to give people my honest opinion. And I've never really been actively involved in politics. Um, and I'm just trying to point out that my track record in the past has been moderate, if not moderate, then slightly to the left. So this is an invitation to people out there who are in the moderate camp to say, I think you should support Donald Trump for president. And I think that's a very important point along the way. And we're in big trouble if, if, if it goes the other way.

Well, I would like to thank you. And, you know, I've always thought of you as a bit left-wing, I have to say. So it's an even greater honor to have your support. I know how strongly you feel about it, but thinking about it. I had a good friend in San Francisco 15 years ago, Bob Tisch. He said it was the greatest city in America. And now it's almost unlivable. The same goes for California. And she was involved in the destruction of San Francisco and the destruction of California. And she will be involved in the destruction of our country if people are so unwise as to vote for her. And I hope that doesn't happen, and I hope that the elections are run honestly and we turn this country around. We will do things that we can do quite quickly and we have to get rid of the criminals that have been handed to us by other countries. When they laugh, they laugh at us. They think we are stupid to accept these people. In many cases, they are radical, stone-cold killers and terrorists. And there are hundreds of thousands of them in our country and we have to eliminate them.

Musk: Yes, yes. I mean, if I could summarize it, maybe, you know, I think these are issues that most people in America would agree with, which is that we want safe and clean cities, we want secure borders, we want sensible government spending. We want to restore respect for the justice system both in perception and in reality, and we want to end the war on the law. And I think that's like and how are those right-wing positions at all. I think that's just common sense. And that's, uh, I mean, would you agree with that to 100%?

I don't understand them calling it progressive, they don't like the word liberal anymore, but they call it liberal or progressive. I don't understand how anyone can say it's okay for them to empty prisons in our country. And I've already told you that crime rates are way down all over the world. That makes sense. If something happens in this election that would be a horror show, next time we'll meet in Venezuela because that's a far safer place than our country. Okay, let's go then. You and I will go there, and we'll have a meeting and a dinner in Venezuela, because that's what's happening there. The crime rate is going down and our crime rate is going through the roof. And it's so simple. And you haven't seen anything yet because these people have come to our country and they're just getting acclimated and they don't know how to be politically correct. Law enforcement or lack of law enforcement and our police. I just have to end with this sentence. We have a great police force. We have great law enforcement. But they must not be allowed to do their job. They need to be able to do their job without being destroyed. Now.

Exactly. And it's demoralizing, of course, when you're a police officer risking your life to, you know, arrest violent criminals who could and sometimes do kill you, and then you arrest the violent criminal and the prosecution doesn't pursue him. And that let the guy out. So why would a police officer risk his life to arrest a violent criminal?

Worse still, Elon, nothing will happen.

Musk: Yes, yes. It can't be that our police officers are beaten up on camera by a gang of illegal immigrants and then nothing happens to the guys who beat up the cops. I mean, and they're released.

And we will get them out of the country. You know, when I started, they said you couldn't take them back to these countries. You couldn't take them back. In the case of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and some others, they couldn't be returned. And I said, "Really? Oh, you can't take them back, because under Obama he couldn't take them back. They would fly him in and put airplanes on the runways in those countries. If you couldn't land the plane, they were brought back. And the general told me. The generals told me, "Are you sure we can't get him back? The countries don't want to accept Ms. 13 as a gang member. They won't accept her. And I said, 'Really? How much are we paying these various countries in economic aid, which is also a bit ridiculous. And the answer was 750 million dollars. I said, 'Well, tell them they're in default. They're delinquent. We're not going to pay them anymore because they won't accept it. And you know what happened? They all called me. Every single one of them. They said we would be honored to take them back, sir. We would be honored. It was so easy. But it's one of those things. And we got it back. We took so many in. You know, Ms. 13 is probably the worst gang in the world. They're the most vicious and violent. We've taken them from here by the thousands and taken them away. And their countries have taken them back. And because I said you will not get any more economic aid. And once I said that they were nice. They wouldn't take it back for Obama, they wouldn't take it back for anybody. And now we have a problem because we have this guy, and they in turn won't take it back with Biden because they don't respect him.

Yes, yes, yes. So it just has to be done. We just can't, uh, you know, whether they're citizens or not. Citizens we can't have because they weren't persecuted citizens either. Not just not just illegals. So we can't have violent offenders, you know, repeat offenders who aren't so they can't be incarcerated. That is correct. Because they will, of course, by definition, continue to, uh, hurt people. And I think that's partly because I consider myself a liberal in some ways. I mean, you just want to have empathy for people. Of course you want to empathize with people. I can only agree with that. You want to have empathy, but you also have to have empathy for the victims of the criminals. And if you only have compassion for the criminals, then that's really just superficial compassion. It's not real. You don't think that you don't think. You have a layer of deep empathy. You have to ask yourself, what happens if you don't imprison this person? Who are they going to hurt? Who knows, they might kill someone. They might rape someone if you don't lock them up. You have to have empathy for the victims. And there's a lack of empathy for the victims of the criminals and there's too much empathy for the criminals. That makes no sense. That's why you should have a deep empathy for society as a whole and not a superficial empathy for criminals.

And we need to show our police officers the dignity and respect they deserve and we need to let them do their job there. They can do a good job, but we have to let them do their job. And if we don't do that, then everything will disappear. There has never been a society where you can do anything you want and nothing happens. And I'm talking about violent crime, and it's going to get more violent because these are really violent people, and we're going to get them out of our country, and we're going to get them back to where they were sent by the presidents and the different people that run these countries. And I know every single one of them, and they're smart people who know their way around the street and they really think the United States is stupid. They think we're run by stupid people, and they happen to be right. But when I was there, we didn't have any problems. We got them out. We took out thousands of Ms. 13 gang members. We brought them back. And now it's the same old story. We don't. And they even gave them a significant increase in aid. They upped it to billions of dollars and they get nothing for it. So I hope everybody will vote for Trump and we can save this country. And I didn't need that. I'm like you, I didn't need that. I've had a very nice life. I didn't need to be fighting through the court systems and all these other things and running at the same time. I got to go. I got to run fake trials with sometimes corrupt judges, with totally corrupt judges. I didn't need it. I've had a good life. I have great locations, I have beautiful oceans, I have places that I, you know, I was that, but I felt it was important. And if I had to do it again, you'd probably think I was crazy because I really did it. But if I had to do it again, I would do it again. Because it's so much more important than me or my life. That's how we're going to save this country. This country is going down, and these people are bad people that we're going up against. And they are liars. They make statements. They, they, they do things that are so bad. They say they're going to create a strong border. They say they've been great on the border, but they've been the worst in history. They say they're going to fight crime.

Musk: The facts speak for themselves. It is so unbelievable. I speak for myself.

But it has gotten to the point where people in many cities no longer even bother to report crimes because they know that nothing will happen. I hear that anecdotally from people all the time. Um, so, it's just about my values. I just tell people out there what I think is important for the future: We need safe cities, we need safe borders, we need sensible spending. And we need deregulation so that we have a prosperous future. And then we want to have some exciting "moonshot" projects that people can get excited about. And that's the future I'm aiming for. And, um, you know, I'm pro-environment. But I'm not against the oil and gas industry, I don't think we should demonize it, because it keeps civilization going. But I think we want to move at a reasonable pace towards a sustainable energy economy. Those are my values. And I think, um, you know, and so, I mean, that's, uh, why I'm supporting you for president, you know.

Trump: Well, I appreciate that we are going to create incentives for companies to come to our country and not to leave our country. We will give huge incentives. We want companies to build here and not in other locations. And we want to create jobs. And again, it's about the American dream. You don't hear about the American dream anymore, Elon. You don't hear about being the American dream in the truest sense of the word, but you don't hear about the American dream anymore, and you will hear about it. People need that incentive to go out and do it, and they're going to love their lives. I mean, they're going to love it, they're going to look forward to getting up in the morning and going to a job that they love, not a job that they can't stand or no job where they have no money, where they literally have no money, and then they end up with violence and a lot of other problems. No, that's what we're going to do.

Trump: They do great things and I learned a lot in the early days. We had a great economy and all that. We rebuilt the military. We did so much. But I also learned, and I also met the best people. I learned that the good people, the smart people, the dumb people, the people who can do things, the people you know, you learn. When I first came here, I told people I've only been to Washington D.C. 17 times, according to the Fake News media. I was there 17 times. I never stayed overnight. And you don't know the people. You rely on others to give you names, and then you realize the people you relied on weren't that good. We had great people, but we also had some that I wouldn't have used if I had known. Now I know everyone and I think we're going to turn things around really quickly. We have no other choice. And I'm really grateful that I've been able to do that. It's been a lot of fun being with you. You're a great guy. You've done an incredible job and you're a great inspiration to people, a great inspiration, and I hope you keep going and keep doing well because we have a great election ahead of us. And I believe that November 5th will be the most important day in the history of our country. I think this election is going to be the most important election, and I think it may end up being the most important day in the history of our country, because if we don't win, I feel so sorry for everybody. No, I think we're at a crossroads of destiny, of civilization. And I think we have to take the right path, and I think you're on the right path. I think that's what it comes down to. Thank you very much.

Elon: No, I think we are at a crossroads of destiny, of civilization. And, um. And I think we have to take the right path, and I think you're on the right path. I think that's what it comes down to.

Trump: IThank you very much Elon, it's a great honor. And we will do it again sometime. And it was really fun. And I hope you have a lot of viewers. I hear you have a lot, but I.

It is a great honor. And we will do it again sometime. And it was really fun. And I hope you have lots of listeners. We'll see you again soon.

Musk: So good. Sounds good. Thank you very much.

Trump: Thank you very much. Elon. Thank you very much. Goodbye.