By Sarah Fortinsky - 08/13/24

Vice President Harris’s campaign responded to former President Trump’s interview with Elon Musk on Monday, calling them “self-obsessed rich guys” and jabbing them over their livestream issues.

“Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024,” the campaign wrote in an official statement after the Monday night interview, which was streamed on the social platform X’s Spaces.

Throughout the interview, which was delayed by about 45 minutes due to technical issues, the Harris campaign captured short soundbites and posted them to its rapid response page.

The campaign hit Trump for saying global warming and rising sea levels would produce “more oceanfront property” and claiming the issue is not as big a problem as “nuclear warming.” The campaign posted a clip of Trump praising Musk, the owner of X, for firing workers when they went on strike.

The campaign also posted a soundbite of the former president saying that, if elected in November, one of the first things he would do is close the Department of Education — a policy outlined in the conservative Project 2025 agenda.

“Donald Trump extremism and dangerous Project 2025 agenda is a feature not a glitch of his campaign, which was on full display for those unlucky enough to listen in tonight during whatever that was on X.com,” the Harris campaign wrote in its statement.

Trump’s interview Monday marked the GOP nominee’s most significant return to the social media platform since he was reinstated in 2023.

Musk, who endorsed Trump in the 2024 campaign, spoke to the former president for about two hours and covered a range of topics.

Trump largely avoided any major missteps but gave an interview that frequently resembled one of his rallies, as the former president often rambled, attacked Harris and President Biden as “incompetent,” and repeated many of the same anecdotes he tells at campaign events.

But he also managed to focus more on issues — including immigration, the economy, the recent assassination attempt and the future of energy production — and avoided making the type of inflammatory, controversial comments that have plagued his recent public appearances.

A Trump campaign spokesperson responded to the Harris campaign’s statement, writing, “KamalaHQ is just big mad they are playing with Play Doh while we’re playing chess.”

“The fact is that nobody can garner an audience like President Trump and spend over two hours talking about a variety of topics in a free form conversation,” they added. “Whereas Kamala needs to be programmed like a robot and can’t live without her teleprompter.”