CHRIS CRUCIAL: Donald Trump's X interview is an absolutely terrible idea

PLUS: Trump super PAC goes on air!

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1. Elon + Trump = Trouble

Donald Trump is in the midst of a campaign tailspin.

Ever since Kamala Harris emerged as the Democratic presidential nominee at the end of last month, Trump has abandoned the advice of his top strategists and instead weakened himself with a series of self-inflicted wounds — from questioning Harris’, er, blackness to attacking the popular Republican governor of Georgia to insisting (contra all facts) that Harris used AI to bulk up her crowd size at a recent appearance.

What better way to calm this all down and get the campaign back on track than to do an interview with X owner — and noted provocateur and conspiracy theorist — Elon Musk!

And yet that is exactly what Trump will do tonight at 8 pm eastern on his X feed — where he appears to now be posting again.

Getting Trump back on X — even for a day — is a coup for Musk. But it is an objectively horrible decision for Trump if his ultimate goal is, you know, winning the election.

Here’s why: Musk, who has grown increasingly radicalized — especially on wokeneness and identity politics — will play to all of Trump’s worst instincts.

He will egg the Republican nominee on when it comes to false claims about the 2020 election. He will indulge Trump’s flights of fancy about how “they” (unclear who “they” actually is) are out to get the former president and keep him from winning the presidency again. He will play to Trump’s juvenile side — particularly as it relates to Harris’ candidacy.

And Trump, of course, will be unable to help himself. He lacks any message discipline at the moment — he’s just making gut calls on everything — and Musk’s presence will only make Trump more willing to say outrageous things to freak out the squares.

Again, it’s important to remember that Musk and Trump have (or at least should have) wildly different goals here.

For Musk, this is a branding and business opportunity to show the world that his much-maligned reboot of Twitter still matters. Which means he is incentivized to get Trump to say the wildest/most outlandish/craziest things possible since that means more eyeballs and more eyeballs means more money.

Witness how Musk is promoting the event:

“Entertainment guaranteed”!

Trump’s goals shouldn’t be entertainment. If anything, I would argue he needs to just, well, stop saying stuff for a little while.

What Trump needs to do is figure out what his message actually is against Harris. Is she a fake who says whatever she thinks the audience wants to hear? Or is she a dangerous liberal who is out of the step with the ideological (and geographic) middle of the country?

Doing a live Q and A with Musk on X is the exact opposite of that sort of message refinement and discipline.

So, why then is Trump doing it?

Well, mostly because that Trump is the campaign and the campaign is Trump. That’s especially true when things are going poorly for him — leading the billionaire businessman to just wing it and listen only to his own inner voice.

And then there’s this: Musk has endorsed Trump. And Trump likes people who like him.

Here’s what he said about the Musk interview when asked about it at a press conference last week:

So Elon called me. As you know, he endorsed me full-throated. Great endorsement. I respect Elon a lot, he respects me. And not easy for him to endorse, to be honest with you. You know, it takes courage to endorse people. Many people have courage and many people don't. He does have courage.

This interview is Trump paying Musk back for his “courage.” (Everything in Trump’s world is purely transactional.) Which doesn’t make it a good idea. It is most definitely not one.

2. Make Super PACs Great Again

Even as Trump struggles to get out of his own way — or find a message that works against Harris — his most prominent (and well funded) super PAC is set to launch $100 million worth of ads in swing states between now and Labor Day.

As Politico wrote of the ads:

The super PAC’s ads will focus on defining Harris as a “soft-on-crime radical who is too dangerous for the White House,” the organization’s top strategists, David Lee and Chris Grant, write in the memo. “Americans might vote for a liberal, but they won’t vote for a lunatic.”

The spending provides much-needed air cover for Trump and his allies who have been heavily outgunned across the ad wars. This chart, via Axios, tells that story in stark terms:

In all likelihood, despite the latest MAGA Inc. spending, Trump will be financially outgunned in this race. Which may sound worse than it actually is. Trump was outspent in 2016 and 2020 and won the first race and nearly won the 2nd one.

3. Ben Sasse, call your office

Ben Sasse, the former Nebraska Republican Senator, resigned as president of the University of Florida at the end of last month to, he said, deal with his wife’s epilepsy diagnosis.

A new report — done by the university’s student newspaper — raises a number of questions about how Sasse ran the president’s office during his time there.

Here’s the key bit:

In his 17-month stint as UF president, Ben Sasse more than tripled his office’s spending, directing millions in university funds into secretive consulting contracts and high-paying positions for his GOP allies.

Sasse ballooned spending under the president’s office to $17.3 million in his first year in office — up from $5.6 million in former UF President Kent Fuchs’ last year, according to publicly available administrative budget data.

A majority of the spending surge was driven by lucrative contracts with big-name consulting firms and high-salaried, remote positions for Sasse’s former U.S. Senate staff and Republican officials.

I mean…

It’s a very tough read for Sasse. And you should absolutely read it.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“I believe that Kamala Harris is whatever she says she is.” — Ohio Sen. JD Vance when asked by CNN’s Dana Bash whether he believed Kamala Harris is black

ONE GOOD CHART

I wrote on Friday about how polling has long shown people trust Donald Trump more than the Democratic nominee to handle the economy. Well, if this Financial Times poll reflects our current reality, that fact has now changed.

SONG OF THE DAY

Waxahatchee can do no wrong in my eyes. She’s got the frontrunner for album of the year already. And now she is doing a collaboration called “Easy Company” with the Futurebirds. Great stuff.

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