Harriet Brewis
Aug 13, 2024
Donald Trump Returns to X in conversation with Elon Musk
Fox - Ktvu / VideoElephant
Of all the talking points you might have expected Donald Trump’s conversation with Elon Musk to generate, his dental condition was probably not one of them.
And yet, the overwhelming question on everyone’s lips following the interview was: “Does Trump wear dentures?”
Trump, 78, and the on-off world’s richest man, 53, sat down for a virtual love-in, streamed on Twitter/X, on Monday night, during which they exchanged compliments, discussed the former president’s recent near-death experience, and derided his Democratic rivals.
And yet, what was billed as “the biggest interview in history” by the MAGA commander-in-chief’s campaign was beset by awkward technical difficulties.
The discussion, which went on to last around two hours, was initially delayed by 40 minutes, with many frustrated users receiving a message reading: “Details not available.”
Trump’s team tried to turn the negative into a positive, posting that the “interview on X [was] being overwhelmed with listeners logging in.”
And once the meeting began, Musk apologised for the late start, blaming a “massive attack” on the company’s system.
But even once the action had kicked off, viewers complained that the 78-year-old’s voice sounded muffled.
This swiftly descended into speculation about the state of his health or, at the very least, his oral hygiene.
At one point during the exchange, the words “slurring” and “dentures” were trending on Twitter/X, racking up more than 20,000 and 15,000 mentions respectively on the platform, the BBCreports.
One commentator wrote: “I'm dying. Trump is slurring. Sounding like Cindy Brady.”
Another added: “Not a joke here: Trump is really badly slurring his words. This is quite disturbing. Something is wrong with him.”
A third commented: “OK, seriously there are two options. His dentures are falling out or he had a stroke. Dude cannot pronounce words at all.”
And a fourth said: “I thought people were exaggerating his problems enunciating but this is insane, he’s really struggling. Is this a dentures/veneers issue? It sounds like somebody talking after getting their wisdom teeth out.”
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris’s campaign seized upon the confusion, tweeting: "Trump, slurring, says he’s okay with climate change and rising sea levels because he thinks he’ll 'have more oceanfront property'".
Defenders of the former POTUS-turned-presidential-hopeful insisted that the problem did not lie with Trump himself but with “audio compression” issues.
However, when asked by reporters about Trump’s seemingly altered speaking voice, his own spokesperson, Steven Cheung, denied there was anything wrong at all.
Instead, he snapped back: “Must be your hearing”.
Ultimately, we can neither confirm nor deny whether Trump wears dentures, but what is clear is that his age is becoming more of a concern.
Whereas previously, he could tout his relative vivacity compared to his rival, Joe Biden, who is three years his senior, he’s had to ditch such tactics faced with Harris’s 59 years.
That didn’t stop him from criticising them both to an attentive and obliging Musk, describing Harris as a “radical Left lunatic” and Biden as “close to vegetable stage.”
Indeed, Trump insulted Harris several times over the course of the two hours, referring to her as "third rate" and “incompetent” whilst, bizarrely, praising her looks.
"She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live," Trump said about a picture of Harris on the cover of Time magazine. "It was a drawing, and actually, she looked very much like a great first lady, Melania," he added, referring to his wife.
Trump said Harris looked like his wife on her recent Time magazine cover(Time Magazine)
He also voiced his fury that Harris had replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket.
"She hasn't done an interview since this whole scam started," Trump said, adding in the false claim that Biden’s exit from the presidential race was the result of a "coup."
Trump had been leading Biden in many polls of battleground states likely to be critical to the outcome of the November election, but is now trailing Harris in some of the same states.
Meanwhile, many critics have noted that Musk, who described himself as a “moderate Democrat” until recently, suggested in 2022 that Trump was too old to be president again.
And yet, the SpaceX founder formally endorsed Trump two days after he suffered an assassination attempt and reiterated his support during their discussion.
"I think we're at a fork in the road of destiny, of civilisation, and I think we need to take the right path, and I think you're the right path," he told Trump as the interview concluded.
In a statement after the rambling conversation, Harris campaign spokesperson, Joseph Costello, said simply: "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."
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