‘Israel has one, why can’t we?’: Trump vows Iron Dome for US

In a long interview on X, Donald Trump tells Elon Musk the whole country will be defended by an Iron Dome under his watch and speaks of his respect for ‘smart and vicious’ Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

Donald Trump has vowed that he will ensure the US gets an Iron Dome similar to Israel’s world famous missile defence system.

In an interview on the social media platorm X with owner Elon Musk, the Republican presidential candidate said: “Why shouldn’t we have an Iron Dome? Israel has one,” suggesting the US version would defend the entire country.

In a more than hour long conversation that played to Mr Trump’s election arguments, he also

spoke of his respect for “smart and vicious” Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

“When they see a Kamala or sleepy Joe they can’t believe it,” he said, mispronouncing the vice-president’s first name.

He went on to describe a time he allegedly advised Mr Putin against invading Ukraine.

“I told him, ‘don’t do it. You can’t do it, Vladimir,” he says he told the Russian President.

“He said ‘no way’, and I said ‘way’,” says Trump.

The men’s widely anticipated interview got off to a rocky start after X was hit by technical problems, with hundreds of thousands unable to watch the duo on the social media platform.

More than 200,000 who went onto Mr Trump’s profile to watch the interview, which was due to start at 10am AEST instead got a blank space with the message: “Unable to fetch Space.”

Mr Musk, who has endorsed Mr Trump, blamed the failure on a denial of service attack, saying on X he was “working on shutting it down.”

“There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. Working on shutting it down,” Mr Musk wrote. “Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later”.

Mr Musk added: “We tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier today.”

There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on 𝕏. Working on shutting it down.

Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024

DDoS, or distributed denial-of-service, is the sort of attack that overwhelms a website, crashing it.

Just after it began, the event’s listeners crossed 1 million users, according to the platform’s figures.

As the interview began, Mr Trump described how he survived the assassination attempt on him last month by turning at the last second to put down a chart on illegal immigration, he has told Elon Musk.

“If I hadn’t turned my head, I wouldn’t be talking to you now,” said Mr Trump, adding that

he turned an eighth of a second before Thomas Crooks shot him. “It was an act of God, a miracle,” he said. “I’m honoured by it.”

He added that he had believed in God before the assassination attempt, “but I’m more of a believer now.”

Saying the immigration chart saved his life, he joked: “I’ll sleep with it now.”

He described the assassination bid as “surreal, not a pleasant experience”.

“I didn’t know I had that much blood,” he said.

He also paid tribute to the Secret Service sniper who shot Crooks, saying he had taken just five seconds to pick out Crooks and shoot him.

“If he had not done that, a lot more people would be badly hurt or killed,” he said.

Technical problems hit X

The technical problems that beset the intervew represented a setback at a closely watched moment for X, which Mr Musk has been seeking to promote as the go-to online venue for news ahead of the November presidential election. At one point, over 200,000 users were in the Spaces event, according to the platform’s figures.

Mr Musk, who has said he previously voted Democrat, has thrown his weight -- and his wealth -- behind Mr Trump last month’s assassination bid.

But apparent technical difficulties also served as a reminder that the Tesla boss had once backed Trump rival Ron DeSantis, whose campaign launch on the platform was also beset by problems.

“We tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier today,” Musk wrote.

Trump was banned from Twitter after a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol in January 2021, but Musk reinstated him when he took the platform over and renamed it.

On Monday, hours before the interview was scheduled to stream, Trump posted several times on X, the current name of the platform he frequently used during his presidency.

“Are you better off now than you were when I was president?” a tweet read. “Our economy is shattered. Our border has been erased. We’re a nation in decline. Make the American Dream AFFORDABLE again. Make America SAFE again. Make America GREAT Again!” It was the first time he had used the platform since Aug. 24, 2023, when he posted a photo of his mug shot after he surrendered at an Atlanta jail on charges he conspired to overturn his election loss in Georgia.

“TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!” https://t.co/MlIKklPSJTpic.twitter.com/0mMyATtbkJ

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2024

Also on Monday, European Union official Thierry Breton sent a letter to Musk warning about the bloc’s online-content rules in the context of events including the interview, though the letter referred to a “US presidential candidate” and didn’t name Trump. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, has been investigating X over its handling of illegal content and disinformation, and Breton in the letter said Monday’s interview is of interest to EU officials because users in the EU can watch it.

X Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino responded on X, posting: “This is an unprecedented attempt to stretch a law intended to apply in Europe to political activities in the US. It also patronises European citizens, suggesting they are incapable of listening to a conversation and drawing their own conclusions.”

This is an unprecedented attempt to stretch a law intended to apply in Europe to political activities in the US. It also patronizes European citizens, suggesting they are incapable of listening to a conversation and drawing their own conclusions. https://t.co/RmxL4VFuvV

— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) August 12, 2024

The forthcoming discussion, which Musk described Sunday as “unscripted with no limits on subject matter” that “should be highly entertaining” comes as the tech mogul further involves himself in politics with the goal of ensuring Trump is re-elected president. Musk said he would solicit questions from X users.

On Monday, Musk said the platform had been conducting “system scaling tests” in anticipation of a flood of participants and viewers.

Musk offered his endorsement of Trump within hours of the assassination attempt against the GOP presidential nominee last month at one of his rallies in western Pennsylvania. But Musk’s first major foray into presidential politics came in May, when he created America PAC, which is supporting Trump’s re-election campaign. Musk had told others he planned to contribute around $45 million a month into the PAC, The Wall Street Journal previously reported, though Musk later said on X that he is donating at a “much lower level.”

Live conversation on 𝕏 with @realDonaldTrump & me at 8pm ET tomorrow

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2024

On Thursday, during a press conference at his Florida resort, Trump hailed the support.

“Great endorsement. I respect Elon a lot. He respects me and not easy for him to endorse,” Trump told reporters.

He added: “Elon is a very different kind of a guy. He’s a very big believer in the country, but he’s very worried about the country.” Recently, including after Musk’s endorsement, the former president has softened his tone on electric vehicles, citing Musk’s support. Trump had previously criticised the Biden administration for pushing the market more toward electric vehicles, and said the administration was “spending hundreds of billions of dollars to give $7,500 tax credits to rich people who buy electric cars.” Trump, this month at his rally in Atlanta, said: “I’m for electric because I have to be, you know, because Elon endorsed me very strongly.”

Musk, who has said he used to vote for Democrats, has increasingly embraced the right in his posts and actions on X. He reinstated many previously banned accounts, including Trump’s, who was kicked off the platform two days after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. At the time, the company cited “the risk of further incitement of violence.” After Musk bought the company in October 2022, Trump’s account was reinstated, though he seldom uses it. Instead he has chosen to post virtually everything – from campaign videos to stream-of-conscious rants – on his own social-media site, Truth Social, which launched in February 2022.

He did, however, use the platform last August when he chose to skip the first Republican primary debate to sit for a taped interview that aired on X with former Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson.

When Musk acquired Twitter, he pledged to turn the social-media platform into an “everything app” that would eclipse what the long-struggling business had accomplished since its founding in 2006. So far, much of Musk’s grand vision has yet to play out, with the company struggling on a number of metrics, including attracting users, according to third-party data.

With Dow Jones