Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, Trump and Elon Musk had a conversation this evening on Twitter. What happened? What were they talking about? And where’s the technical issue that happened?

Rick Rosner: I didn’t want to click on it because I didn’t want to give them ratings, but… Initially, it crashed to 200,000 viewers/listeners. But then they got their act together and talked for maybe 90 minutes or 2 hours. They were averaging somewhat over a million listeners during any given period. The number that was trending on Twitter was 1,300,000.

I gave in. People were tweeting at me, saying, “Are you hearing this? Are you hearing how lispy and slurred he sounds?” So, I clicked in. I gave in to temptation and listened for about five minutes. Elon Musk dominated the conversation, talking about his amazing future vehicles and charging. Then Trump started talking about nuclear, and he messed it all up.

He was talking about how nuclear is bad and sad when other countries get it. He was talking about nuclear weapons and showing that he doesn’t have any idea who has nuclear weapons. He said, “Yes, now five countries have them, and China has a few now, but they’ll be getting more. It’s sad. The US and Russia are number one.” And it is not good when others… So, he was talking about nuclear weapons, but not in a way that indicates he has any deep understanding of nuclear strategy or policy or who has nuclear weapons. Clearly, he didn’t have the understanding you’d want from a president.

Then Musk and Trump tried to shift the conversation to nuclear energy. Musk was trying to say it’s a good thing. The whole discussion about nuclear was a mess. They were talking about global warming, and Trump was saying that nuclear heating is bad. Eventually, it came out that he was trying to say that nuclear weapons equal nuclear heat, and you don’t want more nuclear heat in the world. Musk seemed a little confused by that, too. But eventually, they moved off nuclearweapons, and after Trump got his bearings and realized they were talking about nuclear energy, he agreed, saying, “Yes, yes.”

It was not very smart. I’ve yet to see enough of Trump to determine whether he’s become so incoherent that he’ll lose voters. I saw something on MSNBC where, in an hour-long press conference, Trump told 162 lies. I’m not sure that level of nonsense peels away that many Trump voters. What has turned people away from Trump?

Jacobsen: So, what about Trump makes him such a mess now? 

Rosner: He’s a shitty-looking older man who spouts nonsense. Kamala Harris is 19 years younger and looks even younger, possibly because she’s Black, and the saying goes, “Black don’t crack.” Her hair is good, and you had two bad heads of hair between Trump and Biden. She’s always smiling, and it’s not a creepy smile like people accused Hillary of. She seems naturally smiley, along with Tim Walz, who’s also naturally cheerful without being a gibbering idiot.

They’re both happy doing the job of politics. The word that pops up around that campaign now is “joy.” They’re super psyched to be working to help America and Americans. We haven’t had a charismatic candidate without huge negatives since Obama. Harris has considerable negatives, mostly based on nothing, like how fast she’s turning things around. People decided they didn’t like her because she’s a Democrat, and they’re Republicans.

But now that they see her, she’s been the candidate for about three weeks. On 538, the percentages for Harris versus Trump have gone from a dead tie, 0.0 percent difference, to Harris being 2.8% ahead in the aggregate in three weeks. If she can keep increasing her lead by a percentage a week, we have exactly 12 weeks to go. But even if she can do half a percent a week between now and the election, that gets her to 10%, which Biden was in 2020 when he beat Trump. In the polls the month before, Biden was between 8% and 10% ahead. So, she’ll be in a good space if her lead keeps increasing at the current rate.

Trump is a mess. Trump’s plane broke down—Trump Force 1. It’s parked somewhere. I guess it’s old and breaks down a lot. They haven’t changed the way planes look in 60 years, so it looks like a modern 737 or 757, but I guess it’s from a zillion years ago. So, he had to find another plane to paint as Trump Force 2. It came out today that that plane used to be Jeffrey Epstein’s plane—the one he flew people to Epstein Island on to have sex with underage girls. That’s wild. The Trump campaign is such a mess right now, and he’s such a mess.

He’s all sad. He’s not holding rallies. Harris is out there filling arenas. So, it’s a bunch of things. Trump is doing a bad job at campaigning.

Harris and Walz are doing a good job at campaigning. They haven’t made any major mistakes yet. There are a couple of vulnerabilities, however. One is that the Republicans are yelling that she hasn’t held a press conference yet. But why should she? That would allow them to jump on everything she says. As long as she’s gaining momentum without a press conference, it’s smart to avoid it. However, that could become a vulnerability over time because the longer she goes without taking questions from the press, the more it becomes an issue.

She’s vulnerable on the border and the economy, but that hasn’t been sticking yet. Some other attacks they’ve tried, like the “stolen valour” with Walz, haven’t been working either. It’s the same guy who did the “stolen valour” campaign this time, the same one who was successful with the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry in 2004. Kerry didn’t know how to respond to that. He was more of a stiff, less likable, and didn’t have the 24 years in the National Guard that Walz did. This time around, that attack isn’t sticking. So, it’s a bunch of different stuff. But the general principle is that Trump is old and ineffective, while Harris and Walz are young, energetic, and not as incompetent or corrupt as far as we know.

There was a story breaking until it was overshadowed by everything else. The Washington Post uncovered that, in the weeks before the 2016 election, Egypt allegedly gave Trump a $10 million bribe. The investigation unfolded over two or three years until Attorney General Bill Barr scuttled it and saved Trump’s ass. We should be paying more attention to that, but it’s just one of a stew of shitty things going on.

Rick Rosner, American Comedy Writer, www.rickrosner.org

Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Independent Journalist, www.in-sightpublishing.com

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