‘Needs to stop’: Elon Musk and Donald Trump speak out in joint interview with Fox News

In a joint interview, Elon Musk and Donald Trump were asked to address awkward questions about the billionaire.

Elon Musk has sat down for a joint television interview with Donald Trump, in which he defended his role as head of the US President’s sweeping cost-cutting initiative within the nation’s government.

The pair of billionaires spoke to Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity, in their first joint appearance since Mr Musk popped up in the Oval Office for a press conference with one of his children last week.

“All we’re really trying to do here is restore the will of the people, through the President,” Mr Musk argued.

“And what we’re finding is that there’s an unelected bureaucracy, a vast bureaucracy, that is implacably opposed to the President and the cabinet.”

Mr Musk went on to cite the voting record of Washington D.C., which like most national capitals leans overwhelmingly to the left. Last year 90 per cent of its voters went for Kamala Harris, and 6 per cent supported Mr Trump.

“Ninety-two per cent. I think about that number a lot,” said Mr Musk. (He got the number he apparently thinks about a lot slightly wrong, but the gist of it was correct.)

“If the will of the President is not implemented, and the President is representative of the people, then that means the will of the people is not being implemented. And that means we don’t live in a democracy. We live in a bureaucracy.”

Mr Musk during the interview. Picture: Fox News

The American political system is split into three branches: executive (the President and the departments under him), legislative (Congress) and judicial (the courts). Theoretically the three branches are coequal, which means no one branch is more powerful than the others. They were designed this way so each branch could be a check on its fellows’ power.

That’s at the heart of the discourse and legal challenges concerning Mr Musk and his DOGE team’s efforts to cut government spending. Does DOGE actually have the power to implement these wide-ranging cuts? Or is it illegally usurping the power of Congress, which has already appropriated the funds in question, and is given the power to set federal spending levels under the US Constitution?

The courts have yet to deliver anything like a definitive answer.

“The President will make these executive orders, which are very sensible and good for the country, but then they don’t get implemented,” Mr Musk said, voicing his frustration.

He cited the example of an order intended to end funding for “high-end hotels for illegals”. This is funding Mr Musk had previously characterised as being “meant for American disaster relief”, though that much wasn’t true. He was right about the money being used to house migrants awaiting their immigration hearings.

“We went in there, we said, ‘This is a violation of a presidential order. It needs to stop.’ So what we’re doing here, one of the biggest functions of the DOGE team, is just making sure that the presidential executive orders are actually carried out,” he said.

This goes back to the same legal question. Congress passed legislation allocating the funds in question. They were used in a way that conformed with the legislation. Mr Musk’s supposition is that he, wielding the authority of the executive branch, can unilaterally withdraw the cash.

Mr Musk, sitting next to Mr Musk, during the interview. Picture: Fox News

“Winning the election is really the opportunity to fix the system,” he told Mr Hannity.

“It’s not fixing the system itself. It’s the opportunity to fix the system, and to restore the power of democracy.

“It’s funny how often, when these attacks occur, the things they’re accusing the administration of are the things they’re guilty of. They are saying that things are unconstitutional, but what they are doing is unconstitutional.”

“It’s always the first thing they do,” Mr Trump agreed.

“It’s just a con job. It’s a big con job.”

“Yeah,” said Mr Hannity.

Musk addresses Twitter’s $10 million payment to Trump

Mr Hannity brought up Twitter’s recent announcement of a settlement with Mr Trump, worth a tidy sum of $US10 million.

“He’s working for free with DOGE. He’s kind of put a lot of his life on hold. And you sued Twitter a number of years ago. You just made him pay you $10 million,” Mr Hannity told the President.

“That’s right. That’s right. Well, I sued from long before he had it,” Mr Trump clarified.

“They really did a number on me. I sued, and they had to pay.”

Mr Trump sued Twitter for suspending his account after the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, when a mob of the then-president’s supporters stormed Congress in an effort to stop his defeat to Joe Biden from being certified.

Multiple social media platforms suspended Mr Trump for, in their view, inciting the violence with his lies about voter fraud in the 2020 election, and his months-long attempts to overturn the people’s will.

In addition to Twitter, the President also sued Facebook, which recently gave him $25 million – even though both lawsuits seemed doomed to fail in court.

“You’re OK with that?” Mr Hannity asked Mr Musk, referring to the Twitter settlement.

“I left it up to the lawyers, and the team running Twitter. I said, ‘You guys do what you think makes sense,’” Mr Musk replied.

Mr Musk (and one of his sons) with Mr Trump during their previous joint appearance, a press conference in the Oval Office. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

Mr Trump was full of praise for Mr Musk during the interview.

“I wanted to find somebody smarter than him. I searched all over. I just couldn’t do it,” Mr Trump said.

“I couldn’t find anyone smarter. For the country. So we settled on this guy.”

“Well thanks for having me. I’m just trying to be useful here,” Mr Musk quipped.

At another point, Mr Hannity brought up a pair of astronauts who remain stranded on the International Space Station. They’re due to be brought back to Earth by a SpaceX capsule either this or next month.

“At the President’s request, or instruction, we are accelerating the return of the astronauts, which was postponed to a ridiculous degree.” Mr Musk said.
“They got left in space,” Mr Trump added.

“Biden.”

“Yes. They were left up there for political reasons, which is not good,” said Mr Musk.

We should note that the astronauts themselves, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, have said this is false.

“We don’t feel abandoned. We don’t feel stuck. I understand why others may think that,” Mr Wilmore said recently.

Finally, Mr Trump and Mr Musk repeated their previous suggestion that the latter will be allowed to self-police any conflicts of interest that arise as part of his government work.

Mr Musk’s companies have benefited – and continue to benefit – from billions of dollars in government contracts and subsidies, issued by the agencies over which he now wields power. Some of them are also under government investigation.

“What if there is a contract he would otherwise get?” Mr Hannity asked, posing a hypothetical (though plausible) scenario in which Mr Musk would be allowed to choose whether or not to give one of his own companies government money.

“Then we won’t let him do it. We’re not going to let him do it,” said Mr Trump.

“If he’s got a conflict. I mean look, he’s in certain areas.”

He cited the electric vehicle industry as an example where Mr Musk was acting against his own interests.

“I’ll recuse myself if there is a conflict,” Mr Musk insisted.

Originally published as ‘Needs to stop’: Elon Musk and Donald Trump speak out in joint interview with Fox News