Donald Trump returned on Monday to the social media platform X, more than three years after he was banned following his supporters’ Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, posting a rash of campaign videos ahead of a scheduled live X interview with tech billionaire Elon Musk.

The former president’s return to his once-favored online soapbox — where he has a following of more than 88 million — offers him the opportunity to pitch his message directly to a vast swath of voters as he faces a tight race against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Until Monday, Trump had posted on the platform formerly known as Twitter only once since Musk bought the site and reinstated his account in November 2022. But the GOP nominee is now struggling to regain campaign momentum as polls show his lead narrowing since President Biden stepped aside July 21 and endorsed Harris.

Musk, who will host the conversation with Trump, has more than 193 million X followers. For the Tesla chief executive, Trump’s return to X also provides an opportunity to revive his struggling social media platform and bolster its status as a central hub for political news.

Since Musk acquired X for $44 billion in 2022 and set about transforming its ethos and mechanics — slashing staff and cutting content moderation — the site has lost some followers and advertisers. It also faces heightened competition from rival platforms, such as ByteDance’s TikTok, Meta’s Threads and Truth Social, the site Trump launched in 2022 in response to his Facebook and Twitter ban.

Musk wrote on X that the 5 p.m. PDT interview would be “unscripted with no limits on subject matter, so should be highly entertaining.”

Ammar Moussa, a Harris campaign spokesman, dismissed the X event as a platform for lies, characterizing Trump and his “billionaire sugar daddy” as “infamous for their relationship with the truth.”

“After ignoring swing voters for 9 days and counting, an angry Trump is taking his backward agenda of hate and division to a Twitter conversation with fellow extremist Elon Musk,” Moussa said in a statement. “Elon, for his part, knows Trump is a man who he can do ‘business’ with, who can be bought, and who will give him vast tax handouts,” Moussa added.

Trump, who has long presented himself as the victim of persecution from the political and media elite, posted a flurry of posts Monday on X, starting witha 2½-minute campaign video that juxtaposed large crowds of his supporters alongside news reports of FBI agents searching his Mar-a-Lago estate and his prosecution by the Justice Department.

“I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” Trump said in a voiceover. “The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it. The more that a broken system tells you that you’re wrong, the more certain you should be that you must keep pushing ahead.”

Musk is likely to be an unorthodox interviewer.

A once-frequent Democratic supporter who backed Biden in the last presidential election, the entrepreneur has drifted rightward since 2020 and become a frequent troll of left-wing politics and what he dubs the “woke mind virus.” Last month, Musk spoke out against a new California law that prohibits mandating that teachers notify families about student gender identity changes and announced he’s moving X and SpaceX headquarters from California to Texas.

After the former president survived an assassination attempt at a Butler, Pa., rally a month ago, Musk said he “fully” endorsed Trump. He also helped set up a political action committee to financially support Trump’s campaign.

Over the last year, X has played a key role in the presidential campaign.

Last month, President Biden announced he was suspending his presidential campaign in a letter posted on X. A year ago, Trump himself used X when he skipped the first GOP presidential primary debate and sought to undercut his Republican opponents by appearing in a prerecorded interview with former Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson, which aired on X.

X, then Twitter, “permanently suspended” Trump’s account in 2021 after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to halt the certification of the election.

“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter announced in a tweet.

A month after buying the platform in 2022, Musk asked the public: Should the former president’s social media account should be reinstated? Fifteen million people voted, and 51.8% were in favor or letting Trump return.

“The people have spoken,” Musk wrote, using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.” “Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.”

Until Monday, Trump had posted only once on X since his page was reinstated. Last August, Trump posted a photo of his mug shot after he surrendered to authorities in Georgia on charges he conspired to overturn his the 2020 election. “Election interference,” the caption read. “Never Surrender!”

But he told Fox News he preferred to comment on Truth Social.

“I am not going on Twitter. I am going to stay on Truth,” Trump told Fox News in April 2022. “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on Truth.”

Trump posted more frequently Monday on Truth Social than Twitter, sharing a stream of Breitbart stories, a New York Post front page, and personal rants characterizing Harris as a fraud who flip-flopped on policy.

But he has only 7.5 million followers on Truth Social. It’s not clear how loyal he will remain to the platform as his margins shrink in critical battleground states Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.

Former President Trump is claiming that “nobody” was on the tarmac last week in Detroit to greet Vice President Harris for a campaign event in the Motor City despite unedited video and images from multiple news agencies showing otherwise. 

Trump made the claim in a post on Truth Social on Sunday as he shared two images – one showing thousands of Harris supporters reacting to Air Force Two’s arrival at Detroit Metro Airport, and another showing a zoomed-in reflection of the plane’s engine in which it appears difficult to make out an audience. 

“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!” Trump declared. “She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture, but there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror like finish on the Vice Presidential Plane.” 

“She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people!” Trump added. However, a review of media of the event by Fox News Digital clearly shows that there were plenty of supporters there on-scene to greet Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. 

WASHINGTON POST PUSHES HARRIS TO ANSWER ‘LEGITIMATE QUESTIONS’ ABOUT HER FLIP-FLOPS, AGENDA 

The Harris campaign had told Fox News an estimated 15,000 people showed up at the rally last Wednesday.

TRUMP SHOOTING TASK FORCE DEMANDS DOCUMENTS FROM TOP BIDEN OFFICIALS IN PROBE KICKOFF 

The crowd at the event – which was estimated to be 15,000 – was inside and outside of the hangar at Detroit Metro Airport. (AP/Julia Nikhinson)

The Harris and Trump campaigns did not immediately respond Monday to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Air Force Two taxis on the tarmac as several thousand attendees applaud during a presidential campaign rally for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Michigan, last week. (Adam J. Dewey/Anadolu via Getty Images)

But an X account run by the Harris campaign shared one of Trump’s Truth Social posts regarding the crowd, saying that “This is an actual photo of a 15,000-person crowd for Harris-Walz in Michigan.” 

Harris, top left, is seen speaking at the podium at a campaign event last week in the Detroit, Michigan, area. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)

“Trump has still not campaigned in a swing state in over a week… Low energy?” it added. 

Fox News’ Kate Sprague contributed to this report.

In a boisterous homecoming after becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris returned to California on Sunday and reveled in being surrounded by supporters she has known for decades, while also warning of a bleak future for the nation if Democrats do not win in November.

“It’s good to be home,” Harris told about 700 people who roared and leaped to their feet as she walked on stage in a hotel ballroom in San Francisco. “This is a room full of dear, dear friends and longstanding supporters — folks I have known for my entire career. … We’ve been through a lot together. I want to thank everyone in here for your love and longstanding support and friendship and for your dedication to this country.”

The mood at the fundraiser was warm and optimistic — one woman in the front row waved a sign that said “Make America Joyful Again.” But Harris turned serious when she argued that fundamental rights such as healthcare, same-sex marriage and abortion are at stake in the race against former President Trump.

“We know what we need to do — we need to knock on doors, we need to register folks to vote, we need to get people to the polls. And every day matters,” she said. “That’s why we’re going to win, but let’s not take anything for granted.”

The event, which drew House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Rep. Barbara Lee, San Francisco Giants Chief Executive Larry Baer and a slew of other elected officials and donors, raised $13 million in the city that laid the foundation for Harris’ political career. Tickets cost between $3,300 and $500,000.

Harris worked as a prosecutor and a City Hall attorney in San Francisco before being elected district attorney in 2003, which served as a springboard to her later roles as state attorney general and then U.S. senator.

“This is a good day when we welcome Kamala Harris back home to California,” said Pelosi, who introduced the vice president. “She makes us all so proud, she brings us so much joy, she gives us so much hope.”

The event had the feel of a family reunion. Harris’ niece’s young children posed for pictures in front of a large Harris/Walz campaign sign on the stage. She called out several attendees from the stage, showering the most attention on Newsom. She reminisced about the day in 2004 when they took their oath of office in San Francisco, she as district attorney and he as mayor, and also their work marrying gay couples that year.

“I have known Gavin as a friend and colleague for so, so many years,” she said. “I want to thank you in front of all of our friends who are here for being an extraordinary leader of California and the nation.”

The event capped a whirlwind three weeks in the presidential campaign, with President Biden announcing he would not seek reelection, Democrats quickly coalescing around the vice president as their nominee and Harris selecting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

In Biden’s first interview since he announced he would not seek another term, he said his decision was driven by the importance of beating Trump, the concerns among some members of the House and the Senate that he could harm their chances and that his candidacy could “be a real distraction.”

“The critical issue for me still, it’s not a joke, maintaining this democracy,” he said on an interview that aired on CBS on Sunday. While “it’s a great honor being president, I think I have an obligation to the country to do what I — the most important thing you can do — and that is, we must — we must — we must defeat Trump.”

Harris and Walz spent last week barnstorming battleground states — events that have drawn large crowds.

“Folks are coming to these events and they’re bringing with them so much joy. People are singing and they’re dancing in the aisles long before we get there,” Harris said. “They’re showing up not only because we must beat Donald Trump, they’re showing up because they believe in our country and our freedom.”

On Saturday, the Democrats collected the endorsement of the powerful Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas, and Harris announced she supported not taxing tips — an immensely popular proposal among service industry workers and one Trump backed in June.

“Copy Cat Kamala directly plagiarized President Trump’s No Tax on Tips policy proposal to let hard-working service workers keep more of their own hard-earned money,” the Republican’s campaign said in a statement.

Sunday’s fundraiser also took place four years from the day Biden selected her to be his running mate, months after Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign sputtered out.

“It’s been the best decision I’ve made,” Biden wrote in a fundraising appeal. “Kamala’s sharp. She’s tough. She’s going to make one hell of a president.”

California Republicans chose the location of Sunday’s fundraiser to cast doubt on Democratic leadership and point out dysfunction in San Francisco.

“For anyone unsure of what a Harris presidency would look like, take some time to tour her hometown where crime is running rampant, homelessness is visible on seemingly every street corner, and storefronts and office spaces sit empty as businesses close and people move away with no plans to return,” said state GOP chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson in a statement.

Given California’s deep blue tilt, it will not be contested in November. But it is home to so many wealthy donors that it provides the most campaign cash to candidates on both sides of the aisle. The GOP’s vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, recently headlined two fundraisers in the state.

On Tuesday, Walz will be in Los Angeles to address the AFSCME convention, the union that represents 1.4 million workers, including nurses, corrections officers and child-care providers. He is also expected to attend a fundraiser Tuesday in Newport Beach, the same day Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff raises money at an event in Los Angeles.

Attendee Susie Tompkins Buell, the co-founder of Esprit and The North Face who has known Harris since the 1990s, said she could not recall the last time she had seen this much energy among Democrats, which she attributed to Harris’ candidacy as well as the “danger to our country from within” posed by the prospect of Trump winning another term.

“Kamala’s youth and positive energy is like a fresh gust of a cool breeze on a sweltering, humid day. So refreshing and hopeful,” said Tompkins Buell, whose husband served as Harris’ finance chair during her district attorney and attorney general campaigns.

“She has been an important part of our community for years,” she added. “I am so impressed by her consistency. She is very confident in who she is and her style has always been the same, just improved. It’s all impressive.”