Technical glitches hit Trump’s return to X during Musk interview

Washington: Donald Trump has returned to social media site X in a bid to regain the momentum he has lost to Kamala Harris, but his highly anticipated interview with Elon Musk was stymied by more than 40 minutes of embarrassing technical glitches.

After more than a year off the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Trump took part in a live audio discussion with Musk on Tuesday (AEST).

Former president Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally in Bozeman, Montana last week.Credit: AP

The X owner blamed the glitches on a large cyberattack, which made the online event inaccessible to many.

After the initial 40 minutes of crashes and elevator music, Trump was given more than two hours of largely unchallenged air time in which he attacked Harris, made false claims about illegal immigration and inflation, and touted his election promises, which range from building an iron dome over the United States to shutting down the federal Department of Education.

In parting, Musk, who has endorsed Trump and is donating to his campaign, told the former president: “I think we’re at a fork in the road of destiny of civilisation and I think we need to take the right path. And I think you’re the right path.”

Trump’s return to X comes amid polls showing Harris pulling ahead of Trump in key battleground states, and on his traditional stronghold issue: the economy.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz at a campaign rally in Wisconsin.Credit: AP

But as Harris surges in momentum, Republicans have begged Trump to stop obsessing over her crowd sizes or personality and instead focus on attacking her policies.

In a bizarre digression at the weekend, Trump even suggested that the vice president had used AI to generate photos of the crowd at a rally she headlined in Detroit last week, alongside her new running mate, Tim Walz.

“You’ve got to make this race not on personalities,” former House speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Fox News.

“Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her position when it comes to: what did she do as attorney-general on crime? Question what did she do when she was supposed to take care of the border as a tsar?”

The crowd that greeted Kamala Harris at Detroit Airport in Romulus, Michigan, last week.Credit: AP

Former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro made a similar case regarding the former president’s rallies while hosting Steve Bannon’s right-wing podcast, standing in for Bannon, who is serving time in jail on contempt charges.

While Trump’s often-incendiary rallies once provided a “feast” for TV networks, Navarro said, “Trump doesn’t need feast now. He needs votes, and the current rally formula is simply not sufficiently focused on the very stark policy differences between him and Kamala Harris that will swing voters in key battleground states.”

And former Trump adviser David Urban, now a political strategist with the BRG Group, urged the Republican candidate to attack Harris for wanting to diminish gun ownership rights, push for a single-payer healthcare system and also ban fracking (which she has since U-turned on, due to its unpopularity in Pennsylvania).

“Talk about the issues. If we make this about personalities or crowd size, we’re going to lose and you see that in the polling,” Urban said.

The calls come after a new poll released at the weekend by the Financial Times and the University of Michigan Ross School of Business found that 42 per cent of voters say they trust the vice president to handle the economy, compared with 41 per cent who say Trump would do a better job.

The result represents a seven-point jump for the Democrats since the last time the survey was taken in July, when President Joe Biden was the candidate, and the first time in nearly a year that the Democrats have had an advantage on the issue over Republicans, who have traditionally been viewed as better economic managers.

Harris will start to outline her economic platform this week. Her first campaign pledge on the issue was unveiled at a rally in Nevada, where she infuriated Trump by adopting his policy not to tax hospitality workers’ tips, an issue pertinent to the many workers in and around Las Vegas.

While Trump branded her “copycat Kamala”, the Culinary Union said the vice president had always championed hospitality workers.

“She stood by us as we negotiated and won the best union contract ever, and we trust her to continue the progress of the Biden-Harris administration by delivering real results that will prioritise and protect working families,” said union secretary-treasurer Ted Pappageorge.

There are still three months until election day, but the latest polls are a sign of how much Biden’s decision to end his re-election campaign and endorse Harris has upended the race.

Trump has struggled to form a coherent strategy against Harris since Biden stepped aside, prompting concern within the party that time is running out to woo undecided voters.

Donald Trump is trying to rebuild the momentum his campaign gained in the days after he was almost assassinated.Credit: AP

Trump’s appearance on X was his first time on the site since August last year. It was also only the second time since January 8, 2021, when his account was suspended due to concerns about potential incitement of violence after the January 6 attack at the US Capitol.

Credit: Matt Golding

The Trump campaign has also placed $US37.2 million ($56.4 million) in new ad spending across seven battleground states which, according to tracking company AdImpact, is the most his campaign has reserved on TV ads in a single day this election cycle.

The bulk of that money, almost $US24 million, will be spent in Georgia alone, in a sign of just how much effort the party is placing on wresting back the Deep South state from the Democrats.

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