These two are world powers unto themselves, and they went on for two full hours in this highly anticipated conversation. I guess they figured they may as well get the most out of this very unique moment in the Earth experience by bringing the message to an even wider audience, and in a fairly spectacular, but somehow still low-key way.
Honestly, who has the world’s attention more right now?
Anyway, two hours worth of talking makes for an insanely long body of text to read. What’s presented here is an appetizer.
Should you wish to take in more of the interview, go here…
rev.com/blog/transcripts/elon-musk-and-donald-trump-interview
Elon Musk (00:00):
As this massive attack illustrates, there’s a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say. But I’m honored to have this conversation. I want to emphasize it’s a conversation. And it’s really intended to just get a feel for what Donald Trump is just like in a conversation. It’s hard to catch a vibe about someone if you just don’t hear them talk in a normal way. And when there’s an adversarial interview, no one’s themselves in an adversarial interview. And this is really aimed at open-minded independent voters who are just trying to make up their mind. So you can understand what is it just like to have a conversation. So Donald, great to speak. We had a great conversation yesterday. As you mentioned yesterday, if we could just record that conversation and post it would’ve been excellent. And I hope we can have something like that today.
Donald Trump (01:09):
Well, I think we will. I’m pretty sure we will. And congratulations, because I see you broke every record in the book with so many millions of people. And it’s an honor. We view that as an honor. And then you do want silencing of certain voices. Usually those are voices that have something to say that are constructive, oftentimes constructive.
Elon Musk (01:30):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (01:30):
And so we have to consider it an honor. But congratulations on breaking every record in the book tonight. That’s great.
Elon Musk (01:36):
Well, thank you. Well, maybe we could start off with, I mean, the assassination attempt, which was an incredible thing. And I have to say that your actions at that assassination attempt were inspiring. Instead of shying away from things, instead of ducking down, you were pumping your fist in the air and saying, “Fight, fight, fight.” I think the President of the United States represents America. And I think that is America. That is strength under fire. And so that’s part of the reason why I was excited to endorse you as the President of the United States for having another term here, is that was just incredibly inspiring. But what was it like for you?
Donald Trump (02:31):
Not pleasant, I have to be honest.
Elon Musk (02:31):
Not Pleasant.
Donald Trump (02:33):
I said there was blood. I had more blood. I didn’t know I had that much blood. The doctors later told me that the ear is a place that is a very bloody place if you’re going to get hit. But in this case, it was probably the best alternative you could even think about, because it went at the right angle, and it was a hard hit. It was very, I guess you say surreal, but it wasn’t surreal. I was telling somebody, you have instances like this or a lot less than this, where you feel it’s a surreal situation. And I never felt that way. I knew immediately that it was a bullet. I knew immediately that it was at the ear, and because it hit very hard, but it hit the ear.
(03:21)
And I also heard people shout, “Bullets, bullets. Get down, get down.” Because I moved down pretty nicely, pretty quickly, and we had bullets flying right over my head after I went down. So I’m glad I went down. The bigger miracle was that I was looking in the exact direction of the shooter, and so it hit me at an angle that was far less destructive than any other angle. So that was the miracle.
Elon Musk (03:45):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (03:45):
For those people that don’t believe in God, I think we got to all start thinking about that. You have to. I’m a believer now. I’m more of a believer, I think. And a lot of people have said that to me. A lot of great people have said that to me, actually. But it was amazing that I happened to be turned just at that perfect angle. And all because I put down a chart on immigration that showed that the numbers was so great. I love that chart even more now.
Elon Musk (04:12):
I mean, maybe it’s a sign. Maybe that’s a sign.
Donald Trump (04:14):
It’s an immigration sign.
Elon Musk (04:17):
You highlighted a serious issue, and at that moment, the bullet hit your ear, but missed your head. I mean-
Donald Trump (04:27):
Well, the amazing thing is that the sign, I said, “Bring down that sign on immigration.” And it was literally about an eighth of a second where it would be good. And after that, it was going to be a disaster no matter which way you were facing. But it just had that perfect angle, which was exactly at this shooter. Very sad situation. Such a sad situation. As you know, we lost somebody that was great. Cory, a firefighter, a great gentleman, a great Trumper. He was just a fantastic family and a fantastic man. And a friend of mine came up, Elon, and said, “I’d like to give the family some kind of help.” And I said, “That’s great.” He said, “Do you mind?” I said, “I don’t mind at all.” And he wrote out a check for a million dollars. Gave it to the wife, and she said, “This is really nice, but I’d rather have my husband back.” Which is a nice thing for somebody to say, to be honest. She’s great. The family is great.
Elon Musk (05:24):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (05:24):
And we raised a lot of money for them and for two other gentlemen are unbelievable people also. They were hit really badly. They thought they were not going to make it, and they did. The doctors in the Butler area, I tell you, they were incredible. They saved the two, and they were really hit tough, both of them equally.
Elon Musk (05:45):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (05:45):
And my first question was, because I heard bullets flying over me and I said, “How many people were killed?” Because we had a massive crowd there, a tremendous, thousands and thousands of people. And there was no land. It was all people. So I said, “How many people have been killed?” Because I knew there were other shots being fired. And they said, “We don’t know yet, but some people have been badly hurt.” I have to give the Secret Service sniper, they call him or sharpshooter, but sniper.
Elon Musk (06:15):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (06:15):
Because he didn’t know there was a problem. He’s an extraordinary shot, obviously. And he didn’t know there was a problem, and he was able to pick it all out within five seconds. And he used one bullet from very far away, I guess probably about 400 yards. The shooter was 130, but he was on the opposite side of the field and the podium. And he saw the smoke and the flame from the gun, immediately recognized it, and immediately took a shot. And it was one perfect shot from very far away. And if he didn’t do that, Elon, I mean, a lot more people could have been badly hurt and killed.
Elon Musk (06:57):
Sure. Absolutely.
Donald Trump (06:58):
So I have to take my hat off to him, because that’s also a surreal. He’d been with them for 23 years, and he’s never had anything like this. And all of a sudden he has to act. And it’s a very tough thing to act and to be shooting somebody. But he saw the gun, saw the smoke, saw the flame from the gun very far away, obviously has very good eyes. He’s got very good vision, which I assume you have to have in that particular work.
Elon Musk (07:24):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Donald Trump (07:24):
But he took aim very quickly, and they say it was approximately five seconds from long range, one bullet. If that didn’t happen, because the shooter had a lot of bullets, he had a lot of cartridges up there with him. So would’ve been very [inaudible 00:07:40].
Elon Musk (07:39):
I mean, that’s clearly, he was very competent in taking that shot to stop the attempted assassination. But I mean, there does seem to be, I mean, some pretty significant failings elsewhere in the system. There’s just no way that, how on earth does a shooter get on a roof 130 yards away? That seems crazy. I think most people are wondering how on earth could such a thing happen?
Donald Trump (08:09):
Well, I view it as two ways. There should have been nobody in the roof. There were people, because there were so many tens of thousands of people there. There were people that were seeing him. And there was one woman with a red shirt and Trump all over it. I saw the video and she’s screaming, “That guy’s got a gun.” You saw it probably.
Elon Musk (08:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw the videos.
Donald Trump (08:31):
There’s a guy out there with a gun.
Elon Musk (08:33):
I guess from my part, and I think probably many members of the public are wondering how the heck are basically people wondering why, pointing out there’s a guy on the roof with a gun.
Donald Trump (08:46):
Yeah.
Elon Musk (08:46):
And they’re seeing it, but somehow it’s not being addressed. That does seem crazy.
Donald Trump (08:53):
Yeah. Well, they’re going to learn from this. The communication between the local police who sort of had an idea. And then ultimately a man lifted himself up to the roof, could barely do it, because he was pulling himself up. And he saw the man with the gun. The man with the gun pointed the gun at him. He thought he was probably going to get shot. But he was pulling himself up. And because of that, he couldn’t get to his gun. And he fell down actually very badly, hurt his leg, his ankle, I hear very badly.
Elon Musk (09:25):
Okay.
Donald Trump (09:26):
But he fell down. And he did, from what I understand, he did say, ” There’s a guy up there with a gun.” And the shooting started very quickly after that. I think it forced the shooter to go maybe quicker. You’re supposed to be a very good shot.
Elon Musk (09:41):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (09:42):
My sons Don and Eric, they can’t believe what happened. But they said from 130 yards, a bad shot would hit that target almost every time. They said, it’s like in golf, sinking a two-foot putt.
Elon Musk (09:55):
Yeah, it’s not a tough shot.
Donald Trump (09:58):
No, it’s not a long shot. The Secret Service person had the long shot. He had triple the distance, actually.
Elon Musk (10:04):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (10:05):
So it was a terrible thing. Look, it’s hard. I have to say this about the Secret Service. When I went down, and I went down based on I think their screaming, but other people also, because people saw this happen. You had so many people. One of the miracles was that nobody ran. I mean, if a gun goes off, the crowd control people showed us this. When guns go off, and it does happen in stadiums and at a soccer match, or some kind of a match, everybody flees, they call it a stampede like cattle. And a lot of people get killed with those stampedes. We had more people than you’d have at some of these matches or these games. And nobody left. You had a small group behind us in the grandstand, and that was full. And you look at it as it was taking place.
(10:56)
And normally they’d be running. They didn’t leave. They saw that I was hurt. They saw a lot of blood, and they saw that I went down. And it’s almost like they wanted to be with me. Well, out front you had thousands, tens of thousands of people, as far as the eye could see you had people in Butler, as far as the eye could see.
Elon Musk (11:14):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (11:14):
And a lot of press too, many cameras on watching this. It’s what makes it so different, because normally things happen that aren’t good, but you never have a picture of it. Here we have all these cameras shooting it, so sort of amazing. But one of the interesting things was that you didn’t have anybody flee. You didn’t have anybody stampede, nobody.
Elon Musk (11:36):
Sure.
Donald Trump (11:37):
And there were some people behind me. They stood up, and they’re looking like, I mean, I’ll tell you, you want to have them in a fox hole with you. I want to meet some of those people. Because it’s so different from what you heard. So I was down. But the Secret Service guys, there were bullets flying right over my head. You could hear them go whizzing. And these guys came jumping on top of me, and a young lady, Kate, they moved so fast. And let me tell you, that took tremendous courage. Now, there was a lack of coordination. Obviously everybody understands that somebody, that building should have been covered. And that was a big thing.
Elon Musk (12:18):
I mean, looking at the aerial views, that building would be the number one spot for a sniper. It’s like if you were to pick what is the favorite… So if the goal is to assassinate, what’s your favorite spot? That building.
Donald Trump (12:30):
You’re right.
Elon Musk (12:30):
That building would be number one.
Donald Trump (12:31):
That would’ve been this spot.
Elon Musk (12:32):
It’s like you couldn’t ask for a better location. It’s like number one.
Donald Trump (12:34):
No, that would’ve been the spot.
Elon Musk (12:36):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (12:36):
People think is when the local policeman, who, by the way, he did what he was supposed to do. He couldn’t hold on any longer. And then when he got his head just peeking above this guy standing there with a gun at his head. And when he fell down, again, hurt his ankle very badly, but he was making the calls. But what happened is the firing took place very soon. So what they think is that this guy ran to his site, which he had all planned out with a gun. He ran to the site, and he started shooting fast. And maybe that’s why he, well, he sort of missed. He got me, but it could have been a much bigger problem.
Elon Musk (13:19):
Yeah. But he totally would’ve hit if you hadn’t turned your head. So it was a very near thing.
Donald Trump (13:26):
It was a miracle. If I hadn’t turned my head, I would not be talking to you right now, as much as I like you.
Elon Musk (13:31):
Exactly.
Donald Trump (13:32):
I would not be talking to you.
Elon Musk (13:35):
You’d be talking to me from another realm perhaps.
Donald Trump (13:37):
Yeah, that’s right. We’d be talking from a different place. But it was a very terrible experience. The Butler Hospital, they did such a great job. The doctors were so good, everybody was so good. There was a mistake if somebody knew, because people were hearing, there was just a bad feeling that there was somebody was around. You know that story now.
Elon Musk (14:01):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (14:01):
And if somebody could have said, because oftentimes said there’d be a lightning storm or something, because I’ve done, I think over 300. I think I did a lot more than that, but we did a lot. And oftentimes they’ll say, “Sir, could you wait 10 minutes, please. Sir, could you wait 20 minutes, there’s a storm overhead.” Or lightning or something, right? That happens often. And this would’ve been a perfect time for that to have happened. But it didn’t get coordinated. That was the problem.
Elon Musk (14:26):
Well, I think your actions in the heat of fire, what I find admirable there was that you can’t fake bravery under such circumstances. The courage is instinctual, or it is not. It’s not a rehearsed action. And so I just want to say that I think a lot of people admire your courage under fire there. Yeah.
Donald Trump (14:49):
Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I didn’t think of it. I just wanted to get up, and I wanted to stand up. I wanted to let people know. I felt I was good when they were on top of me covering me, actually, very much covering me and very bravely. But I wanted to get up. I said, “I want to get up.” And they have everything there. They wanted a stretcher. I didn’t like the stretcher. And I knew I was hit in the year, but I knew I wasn’t hit anywhere else. They felt I was hit someplace else, because it was such a lot of blood. And they were sure that I was hit someplace else. And they were saying, “Sir, you were hitting more than the ear.” I said, “Nope. I was hit in the ear. I want to get up. Let me get up.” And so I got up, and the crowd didn’t know what to think.
(15:35)
I mean, this was so, so many people. And you could see they were confused. They didn’t know what to think. And I wanted to let them know I was okay. It was very important for me to let them know that.
Elon Musk (15:45):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (15:45):
And they went wild. You’ve seen the after. They didn’t go wild when I got up, because they didn’t know was I alive? You really couldn’t tell. When I stood up before the hand, before the fist in the air, they didn’t know if I was alive. Nobody did. And when I put the fist up, they were just relieved and happy and thrilled. And the place went crazy. It was pretty amazing. It was a terrible thing, but it was [inaudible 00:16:15].
Elon Musk (16:14):
It was incredibly moving. Yeah. Well, and I mean speaking of the sort of slide that got you to turn, that saved your life really, was the legal immigration slide.
Donald Trump (16:28):
That’s right.
Elon Musk (16:29):
Maybe this is worth talking about that slide. That slide saved your life, basically.
Donald Trump (16:36):
You’re right. Illegal immigration saved my life. You’re right. But it had to be at that exact angle.
Elon Musk (16:42):
I mean, that’s a great one. Saved by illegal immigration.
Donald Trump (16:45):
The incredible thing though, when you talk about the odds. You had to be exactly at that angle. But the incredible thing is that the chart, I used it less than 20% of the time. It was just a moment.
Elon Musk (16:58):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (16:58):
It’s always on my left, never my right. And it’s always at the end of the speech. So here we have it. It’s on the right, not the left. It’s at the beginning, not the end. And even the people that put it up, they were unprepared. And they did a great job. They got it up immediately, fortunately. But I looked to the right and the bullet came whizzing by hitting my ear. So it was amazing. But when you think of the odds of that, and that normally you wouldn’t use it. Normally I wouldn’t have the thing. And then it would’ve been a very different story. It’s very much, I say an act of God. It’s a miracle that it happened. And I’m honored by it. I’m honored by it.
Elon Musk (17:40):
Well, what were you about to say about illegal immigration before you were rudely interrupted?
Donald Trump (17:48):
Well, I was going to how good the numbers were. By the way, we’re going back to Butler.
Elon Musk (17:51):
Great.
Donald Trump (17:52):
And we’re going to go back in October. We’re all set up, and the people are fantastic in Butler. It’s a great area. These are incredible people. Like the three that in the case of Corey killed, and the other two, the families are, I get to know a little bit, and the families are great. But we’re going back to Butler. And I think I’ll probably start by saying, “As I was saying, prior to being so horribly interrupted.”
Full transcript here: rev.com/blog/transcripts/elon-musk-and-donald-trump-interview