Trump Clearly Wishes He Were Still Running Against Biden

During a chat with Elon Musk on X last night, he described Biden dropping out as ‘a coup.’

President Trump and Elon Musk. AP

MATTHEW RICETuesday, August 13, 202404:29:22 am

President Trump is making it clear that he wants a rematch with President Biden on the November ballot, and the fact the Democrats were able to unify around a new nominee so quickly is nothing short of a “coup” by powerful individuals.

During a conversation with Elon Musk on the billionaire’s X platform last night, Trump trashed the record of Mr. Biden without making much mention of his new opponent, Vice President Harris. Throughout the more than hour-long call, Trump described his successor as incompetent, weak, and stupid.

“Biden’s close to vegetable stage, in my opinion,” Trump said at one point. “Does he have a political advisor that thinks this looks good? … It’s ridiculous.”

In one of the more tense moments on the call, Trump raised his voice in an exceptionally angry tone when talking about how Mr. Biden had been pushed out of the race after the disastrous June debate performance. Trump described, nearly yelling, that the push to get Mr. Biden was a “coup” of historic proportion.

“Both sides hate him. That was a hard thing to do — you know, unification,” Trump said.

Trump has made it clear over the past few days — as Ms. Harris has been rallying with thousands of supports across several swing states — that Mr. Biden would be his preferred opponent. At a rally in Montana on Saturday, Trump said Mr. Biden should make a comeback at the Chicago convention next week to reclaim his nomination.

“They forced him out. It was a coup. We had a coup. That was the first coup in the history of our country. And it was very successful,” Trump said. “I hear he’s going to make a comeback at the Democrat convention. He’s going to walk into the room and he’s going to say, ‘I want my presidency back. I want another chance to debate Trump. I want another chance.’”

More than 1.2 million people tuned in to listen to Trump and Mr. Musk speak in a more conversational tone. The event got off to a rocky start when — for nearly an hour — the X “space” was non-functional.

In another post on X as users waited to listen in to the two men talk, Mr. Musk wrote that the platform had been attacked, but that his team was working on a solution. “There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. Working on shutting it down. Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later,” Mr. Musk wrote before he eventually got the call working again.

Only toward the end of Trump’s conversation with Mr. Musk did the former president mention Ms. Harris. He described her as “a radical left San Francisco liberal” who “destroyed” both her home city and her home state of California while she was the state attorney general and later as a senator. Trump mentioned higher crime rates at San Francisco, cashless bail, and Ms. Harris’s role on immigration and border issues as reasons to vote against her.

“She wants to have open borders and now she’s going like she wants to be tough on the border,” Trump said of his opponent. “She is considered more liberal — by far — than Bernie Sanders … She believes in defunding the police, no fracking.”

MATTHEW RICE

Mr. Rice, based in the nation's capital, covers current events in politics.