Donald Trump recounted his assassination attempt in vivid detail and promised the largest deportation in US history during a high-profile return to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter — a conversation that was plagued by technical glitches.
“If I had not turned my head, I would not be talking to you right now — as much as I like you,” Trump told X’s owner Elon Musk.
Musk, a former Trump critic, said the Republican nominee’s toughness, as demonstrated by his reaction to last month’s shooting, was critical for national security.
“There’s some real tough characters out there,” Musk said. “And if they don’t think the American president is tough, they will do what they want to do.”
The rare public conversation between Trump and Musk, which was overwhelmingly friendly, revealed little that’s new about Trump’s plans for a second term. The former president spent much of the conversation discussing his recent assassination attempt and illegal immigration.
Still, the meeting underscored just how much the US political landscape has changed less than four years after Trump was permanently banned by the social media platform’s former leadership for spreading disinformation that sparked the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress and undermined the very foundation of the American democracy.
Such disinformation has thrived at X under Musk’s leadership.
The session was also intended to serve as a way for the former president to reach potentially millions of voters directly. It was also an opportunity for X, a platform that relies heavily on politics, to redeem itself after some struggles.
It did not begin as planned.
With more than 878,000 users connected to the conversation more than 40 minutes after the scheduled start time, the interview had not yet begun. Many users received a message reading, “Details not available.”
Trump’s team posted that the “interview on X is being overwhelmed with listeners logging in.” And once the meeting began, Musk apologized for the late start and blamed a “massive attack” that overwhelmed the company’s system.
Trump supporters were openly frustrated.
“Not available????? I planned my whole day around this,” wrote conservative commentator Glenn Beck.
“Please let Elon know we can’t join,” billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman posted.
Ahead of his conversation, Musk posted on the platform that X was conducting “some system scaling tests” to handle what’s anticipated to be a high volume of participants.
The rocky start was reminiscent of a May 2023 social media conversation between Musk and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Republican governor was using the social media platform as a way to officially announce his presidential bid, a disastrous rollout marred by technical glitches, overloaded by the more than 400,000 people who tried to dial in.
Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, noted that Trump mocked DeSantis at the time.
“Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!” Trump wrote in a message reposted by Harris’ campaign Monday.
Monday’s meeting also highlighted the evolving personal relationship between Trump and Musk, two of the world’s most powerful men, who have shifted from being bitter rivals to unlikely allies over the span of one election season.
Musk, who has described himself as a Democrat until a few years ago, suggested in 2022 that Trump was too old to be president again. Still, Musk formally endorsed Trump two days after his assassination attempt last month.
The tech CEO had already been working privately to support a pro-Trump super PAC. The group, known as America PAC, is now under investigation by election officials for alleged misleading attempts to collect data from voters.
Meanwhile, Trump has softened his criticism of electric vehicles, citing Musk’s leadership of Tesla. And on Monday, at least, Trump returned to Musk’s social media platform in force. The former president made at least eight individual posts in the hours leading up to the Musk interview.
Long before he endorsed Trump, Musk turned increasingly toward the right in his posts and actions on the platform, also using X to try to sway political discourse around the world. He’s gotten in a dustup with a Brazilian judge over censorship, railed against what he calls the “woke mind virus” and amplified false claims that Democrats are secretly flying in migrants to vote in US elections.
Musk has also reinstated previously banned accounts such as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Trump, who was kicked off the platform — then known as Twitter — two days after the Jan. 6 violence, with the company citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.” By November 2022, Musk had bought the company, and Trump’s account was reinstated, although the former president refrained from tweeting until Monday, insisting that he was happier on his own Truth Social site, which he launched during the ban.
Trump’s audience on X is legions larger than on Truth Social, which became a publicly traded company earlier this year. Trump has just over 7.5 million followers on Truth Social, while his mostly dormant X account is followed by 88 million. Musk’s account, which hosted the interview, has more than 193 million followers.
In a reminder that the world was watching, the chat prompted a preemptive note of caution from Europe.
Thierry Breton, a French business executive and commissioner for internal market of the European Union, warned Musk of possible “amplification of harmful content” by broadcasting his interview with Trump. In a letter posted on X, Breton urged Musk to “ensure X’s compliance” with EU law, including the Digital Services Act, adopted in 2022 to address a number of issues including disinformation.
In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung urged the EU to “mind their own business instead of trying to meddle in the US Presidential election.” He said the EU was “an enemy of free speech and has no authority of any kind to dictate how we campaign.”
Trump and Musk talk about assassination attempt and deportations during glitchy chat on X
https://arab.news/ryx7w
Trump and Musk talk about assassination attempt and deportations during glitchy chat on X
Trump says he will meet with India’s Modi next week
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Tuesday he will meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi next week.
Trump announced the meeting at a campaign event in Flint, Michigan, while he was speaking about US trade with India. He gave no details on where they would meet.
Portugal battles ferocious wildfires as toll rises to seven
AGUEDA, Portugal: Thousands of firefighters on Tuesday battled wildfires in Portugal that have killed seven people and burnt more land in a matter of days than the rest of the summer combined.
Fanned by bellowing winds in the stifling heat, the three largest fires concentrated in the northern Aveiro region scorched some 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) by Monday evening, according to a civil protection report.
Three firefighters died on Tuesday when their vehicle was trapped by the flames, civil protection authorities said, bringing the fire-related toll up to seven, with some 50 injured.
The two women and a man were killed while fighting flames in the central region of Coimbra, the interior ministry said. The trio was previously reported to have been killed in the north.
Across the Iberian nation, more than 4,500 firefighters, more than 1,000 vehicles and around 20 aircraft on Tuesday were battling some 50 fires in all, with an alert warning in force since Saturday afternoon extended until Thursday evening.
“We’re in for some very difficult times over the next few days,” Portugal’s Prime Minister Luis Montenegro — who canceled all his Tuesday engagements in response to the blaze — warned on Monday evening.
“Nobody is sleeping here, we’ve been up since two o’clock in the morning,” Maria Ludivina Castanheira, 63, said in the village of Arrancada, south of the coastal city of Porto, where villagers hurried to a small warehouse to fight a fire there.
“We opened the cages so that the pigeons could escape” and “we moved the chickens to a neighbor’s,” Antonia Estima, 39, said as she took a break from helping to fight the flames.
Portuguese authorities have invoked the European Union’s civil protection mechanism to obtain eight additional firefighting aircraft.
Following the two Canadair water bombers sent from Spain on Monday, aircraft made available by France, Italy and Greece were also expected to arrive.
In the municipality of Albergaria-a-Velha, a 28-year-old Brazilian employed by a forestry company died after he became trapped by the flames as he tried to collect some tools.
Another person suffered a heart attack on Monday, while on Sunday a volunteer firefighter died suddenly while taking a lunch break from battling a blaze near Oliveira de Azemeis in hard-hit Aveiro.
Raging since the weekend before worsening on Monday, the blazes have also left around 50 people injured, including 33 firefighters, according to the latest figures from the authorities.
Several roads are still cut off in the northern Portuguese districts of Aveiro, Viseu, Vila Real, Braga and Porto as well as in the central Coimbra region.
Monday saw the highest fire-risk weather conditions in the northern half of the country since 2001, according to experts interviewed by the weekly Expresso.
Scientists say that fossil fuel emissions are worsening the length, frequency and intensity of heatwaves across the world.
The rising temperatures are leading to longer wildfire seasons and increasing the area burnt in the flames, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Air France suspends services to Beirut and Tel Aviv
Air France is suspending services from the French capital’s Charles de Gaulle airport to Beirut and Tel Aviv up to and including Sept. 19 due to escalating security concerns in the Middle East, the airline said on Tuesday.
The operations will resume following an assessment of the situation, Air France added.
Earlier in the day, Lufthansa Group said it is suspending all connections to and from Tel Aviv and Tehran and will bypass Israeli and Iranian airspace up to and including Sept. 19.
US senator accuses Muslim advocate of supporting extremism in hearing on hate
- “This harassment is alarming,” Muslim American advocacy group Engage Action said
WASHINGTON: Republican US Senator John Kennedy accused a leading Muslim civil rights advocate of supporting extremism during a Senate hearing on hate incidents in the US, drawing criticism from many rights groups.
“You support Hamas, do you not?” Kennedy told Arab American Institute Executive Director Maya Berry, who replied by saying: “You asking the executive director of the Arab American Institute that question very much puts the focus on the issue of hate in our country.”
In a follow-up question, the senator asked, “You support Hezbollah, too, don’t you?” He later told her, “You should hide your head in a bag.”
Berry repeatedly said in her responses that she did not support those groups, and added that she found the line of questioning “extraordinarily disappointing.”
Islamist militant groups Hamas, which carried out a deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and Hezbollah are both designated as “foreign terrorist organizations” by the US government.
Multiple rights advocates denounced Senator Kennedy.
“It is absolutely reprehensible that a US senator would weaponize the racial identity of a witness and accuse her of supporting terrorism by using an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim trope in a hearing meant to tackle precisely that kind of bigotry,” Council on American Islamic Relations Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw told Reuters.
“This harassment is alarming,” Muslim American advocacy group Engage Action said.
The Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee, which organized Tuesday’s hearing, also condemned the senator and called Berry’s response to him “powerful.”
Rights advocates have warned about rising threats against American Muslims, Arabs and Jews since the eruption of Israel’s war in Gaza following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
US incidents in recent months include the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Muslim girl in Texas, the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Muslim boy in Illinois, the stabbing of a Muslim man in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York, threats of violence against Jews at Cornell University that led to a conviction and sentencing, and an unsuccessful plot to attack a New York City Jewish center.
Bangladesh opposition party rallies to demand a new election
DHAKA: Thousands of activists and leaders of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Tuesday rallied in the nation’s capital to demand a democratic transition through an election as an interim government has yet to outline a time frame for new voting.
The supporters gathered in front of BNP headquarters in Dhaka, where they chanted slogans demanding a new election.
The interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has rolled out a number of plans to reform various sectors of the country, from the Election Commission to financial institutions. But major political parties — including the BNP, which is headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia — want the new election sometime soon.
Yunus took the helm after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country amid a mass uprising last month, ending a 15-year spell in power. The protests began in July and later morphed into an anti-government movement. Hasina has been living in India since.
In his recent speeches, Yunus hasn’t outlined a time frame for a new national election and said they would stay in power as long as the people want them to stay. A team of newspaper editors recently said that Yunus should complete crucial reforms first and stay in power for at least two years.
The BNP initially demanded an election in three months, but later said it wants to allow the interim government some time for reforms to be undertaken. The country’s main Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party, which was once officially an alliance partner under Zia’s party, also wants to give the Yunus-led government more time before an election is conducted.
