Former President Donald Trump spoke with tech billionaire Elon Musk in an overarching, lengthy interview Monday evening on X as Vice President Kamala Harris continues avoiding the media since landing on the top of the Democratic ticket for the White House. 

“It’s pretty sad when you think that somebody that does this for a living can’t answer a question or is afraid to do an interview, and in her case, with a very friendly interview. She’s got all friendly interviewers,” Trump said of Harris Monday evening during his roughly two-hour interview with Musk on X Space. 

Trump’s comments come as Harris has avoided the media for 22 days. She has snubbed formal press conferences or sit-down interviews, including for a Time magazine cover story, since she emerged as the DNC’s nominee for the White House after President Biden dropped out of the race last month. 

“She is considered more liberal, by far, than Bernie Sanders. She’s a radical-left lunatic. And if she’s going to be our president, very quickly you’re not going to have a country anymore. And she’ll go back to all the things that she believes in. She believes in defunding the police. She believes in no fracking, zero,” Trump added of Harris. 

KAMALA HARRIS DECLINES TIME MAGAZINE INTERVIEW AS SHE CONTINUES TO AVOID THE PRESS

Trump’s interview with Musk kicked off after 8:30 p.m. Monday, following a “massive” distributed denial-of-service attack on the platform that caused delays, Musk explained on X. More than 1 million people ultimately listened to the interview according to the live tracker throughout the discussion. 

X MELTS DOWN AFTER TRUMP-MUSK’S INTERVIEW ‘SPACE’ IMMEDIATELY CRASHES

The two held a laid back interview, where Musk prompted Trump with topics before the 45th president was offered ample time to elaborate on policy issues such as immigration, the assassination attempt on his life last month, spiraling inflation and closing the Department of Education in favor of states taking the mantle on school systems. 

Vice President Kamala Harris says her cursing habit has gotten worse since she entered office.  (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

“I want to close up Department of Education, move education back to the states. … Of the 50 [states], I would bet that 35 would do great. And 15 of them, or, you know, 20 of them, will be as good as Norway. You know, Norway is considered great,” Trump said, while noting left-wing states such as California could struggle if he does eliminate the DOE. 

The 45th president also spoke at length with Musk about the current state of immigration in the U.S. 

“I believe it’s over 20 million people came into our country. Many coming from jails, from prisons, from mental institutions, or a bigger version of that is insane asylums. And many are terrorists. And I’ll tell you what, they’re coming not just from South America. They’re coming from Africa. They’re coming from all over the world. They’re coming from Asia. They’re coming from the Middle East,” Trump told Musk, who endorsed Trump earlier this year. 

Trump said that despite Harris’ recent rhetoric to address the spiraling migrant crisis at the border, she and Biden have had years to address migration but “won’t do anything.” 

“She had three and a half years, and by the way, they have another five months that they can do something. But they won’t do anything. It’s all talk. She’s incompetent and he’s incompetent. And frankly, I think that she’s more incompetent than he is, and that’s saying something, because he’s not too good,” he said. 

On the topic of immigration, Trump also credited a slide his campaign made showing immigration stats for saving his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month during a rally, when shooter Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate him. The 45th president looked over to the slide on immigration data when Crooks opened fire, which narrowly saved his life as the position of his head had abruptly changed. 

“That slide — illegal immigration saved my life,” he told Musk. “The incredible thing is that the chart, I used it less than 20% of the time. It was just a moment.”

“It’s always to my left, never my right, and it’s always at the end of the speech,” Trump added of the position of the slide. 

“I’m going to sleep with that chart always,” he joked. 

FBI INVESTIGATING IRAN’S HACK OF TRUMP CAMPAIGN DOCUMENTS

The interview, billed as “a conversation” between X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk and former US President Donald Trump, originally due to start at 1am on Tuesday, finally got underway just after 1.40am. Picture date: Tuesday August 13, 2024. (Photo by PA Wire/PA Images via Getty Images) (Getty Images)

Trump went on to rattle off a list of wars and world events the U.S. could have avoided if Biden were not in the Oval Office, while noting he was tough on nations such as Russia, China and North Korea and knows the countries’ respective leaders “well.”  

“First of all, the Israeli attack would have never happened. Russia would never have attacked Ukraine, and we’d have no inflation, and we wouldn’t have had the Afghanistan mess, if you think of it well … if you take a few of those events away, and we have a different world.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose for a photo prior to their talks on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, China, on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. President Putin will make a two-day state visit to China this week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (Sergei Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

HARRIS CAMPAIGN POSTS DEBUNKED CLAIM THAT TRUMP CALLED CHARLOTTESVILLE NEO-NAZIS ‘VERY FINE PEOPLE’

He pointed to his tweets back in 2017 when he slammed North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as “little rocket man” as tensions heightened between the two nations amid a series of North Korea missile and nuclear tests. 

In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends at a meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Pyongyang, North Korea on Feb. 28, 2022. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency.  (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

“I had that problem worked out very quickly,” Trump said of North Korea. “It was nasty at the beginning with Rocket Man … [Jong-Un] said he has a red button on his desk. I said, ‘I have a red button on my desk too, but my red button is much bigger, and my red button works.’ And then I called him ‘Little Rocket Man.’”

“Anyway, here’s the bottom line. All of a sudden, I got a call from him, and they said they want to meet, they wanted to meet me. And we met … and I got along with him great. We were in no danger, but President Obama thought we were gonna end up in a war, a nuclear war, with him,” he said. 

BURGLARY AT TRUMP CAMPAIGN VIRGINIA HEADQUARTERS CAUGHT ON SURVEILLANCE CAMERA UNDER INVESTIGATION

The Biden administration would support the elimination of taxes on tipped wages, an idea first proposed by former President Trump, the White House said.  (Left: (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images), Right: (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images))

Trump also addressed Biden’s exit from the 2024 race, saying it was a Democratic “coup” that pressured Biden to drop out. Biden dropped out of the running last month as concerns mounted surrounding his mental acuity and 81 years of age and Democrats and traditional allies of the party called on him to exit the race. 

“This was a coup. This was a coup of a president of the United States. He didn’t want to leave, and they said, ‘We can do it the nice way, or we can do it the hard way,’” Trump said. 

“They just took him out back behind the shed and basically shot him,” Musk added before Trump slammed Biden as “the worst president in history.” 

TRUMP CAMP THANKS WH FOR CONFIRMING THERE’S ‘NO DAYLIGHT’ BETWEEN HARRIS, BIDEN: ‘KAMALA CREATED THIS MESS’

Trump made a return to X, formerly Twitter, earlier on Monday after nearly a year of not posting on his once-favored social media platform. Before X sold to Musk in 2022, Trump was suspended from his Twitter account following the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He seldom posted on the platform after Musk reinstated his account, only sharing his mugshot in August of last year. 

Former President Donald Trump told Columbia Journalism Review he had to fight off “unbelievably fake stories” during his presidency. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

“Are you better off now than you were when I was president? Our economy is shattered. Our border has been erased. We’re a nation in decline. Make the American Dream AFFORDABLE again. Make America SAFE again. Make America GREAT Again!” Trump posted earlier Monday amid a flurry of campaign ads. 

Ahead of his interview with Trump, Musk hyped the interview as one that “should be highly entertaining!” as it “​​is unscripted with no limits on subject matter.”

“This country is going down, and these people are bad people that we’re running against. And they’re liars. They make statements. They do things that are so bad. They say they’re going to make a strong border. They say they’ve been great on the border, and they’ve been the worst in history. They say they stop crime,” Trump said towards the end of the interview. 

“It’s so incredible.” 

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest political news from Washington, D.C. and updates from the 2024 campaign trail. 

Here’s what’s happening…

– No amnesty for Maduro, says State Department…

– Biden, Obama, and Clinton set to speak at DNC marred by shadowed Palestinian protests…

– Where the vice presidential candidates stand on the issues…

The Trojan Leftist

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has not taken questions from reporters in the nearly three weeks since President Biden suspended his re-election campaign – a move that may work to her advantage like it did for Biden in 2020. 

“She is running a similar play to Biden in 2020 where, of course, he used COVID as an excuse to stay in his basement the entire election,” Cody Sargent, spokesperson for Heritage Action for America, told Fox News Digital in an interview. 

“Harris is running a Trojan horse campaign,” Sargent continued. “She’s distracting people with Megan Thee Stallion and rolling out a vice president commercials that don’t really say anything, distracting them with this big shiny object and Trojan horse. But, then inside that horse is socialism, the most radical candidate to ever appear at the top of her presidential ticket, and she’s avoiding doing any media, any real interviews, any sit down.”

Harris was blasted for spending less than two minutes taking questions from reporters Thursday after being criticized for going 18 days without speaking to the media …Read more.

White House

‘NOT TRUE’: State Department says no offers of amnesty were made to Venezuela’s Maduro …Read more

COASTING BY: President Biden has a light week planned as tensions mount in the Middle East …Read more

Capitol Hill

BIG SPENDERS: Freedom Caucus makes these demands as Congress gears up for shutdown fight …Read more

The Writing on the Walz 

‘AFFRONT’ TO MILITARY: Former leader of Walz’s battalion slams Harris’ running mate in scathing post …Read more

FLASHBACK: Gov. Walz amplified comment comparing ICE raids to ‘terrorism’ in America …Read more

‘THEY TOOK EVERYTHING’: Store owner who cried as BLM riots destroyed his livelihood under Gov. Walz speaks out …Read more

BAD WITH MONEY: Gov. Walz’s government giveaway fraudulently spent on luxury goods, overseas real estate …Read more

Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a campaign event on August 7, 2024 in Detroit, Michigan. Kamala Harris and her newly selected running mate Tim Walz are campaigning across the country this week. (Andrew Harnik)

Tales from the Trail

‘KAMALA OWNS THE BORDER CRISIS’: Trump camp rallies around WH ‘confirming’ there’s no ‘daylight’ between Harris, Biden …Read more

FAKE NEWS: Democrats continue to hit JD Vance with debunked claim …Read more

FACT-CHECKED: Trump’s accusation that Harris campaign used AI to generate crowd disproven by video …Read more

CONVENTION CHAOS?: Biden, Obama, Clintons to speak at Democratic Convention preparing for large Palestinian protests …Read more

SPLIT TICKETS: Fox News Power Rankings: Voters’ appetite for ticket-splitting will decide the Senate …Read more

‘RADICAL’: Harris’ low media approach could pay off like it did in 2020 with Biden’s ‘basement’ campaign …Read more

COMPARE AND CONTRAST: Here’s where the vice presidential candidates stand on top issues …Read more

JD Vance criticized Kamala Harris’ running mate selection of Tim Walz. (Getty Images)

Across America

FREE TO CAMPAIGN: Trump legal cases paused, delayed following Supreme Court ruling, freeing up campaign schedule …Read more

THE DEFUND EFFECT: How the U.S. can become a ‘law enforcement minded country’: former ICE official …Read more

‘POLITICAL PERSECUTION’: Trump to sue DOJ for $100M over Mar-a-Lago raid …Read more

‘IT WILL GET WORSE’: Illegal migrant allegedly commits 22 crimes in 6 months …Read more

Illegal Venezuelan immigrant Daniel Hernandez Martinez, 30, allegedly committed 22 crimes in six months in New York City. (Getty/NYPost)

GETTING TO WORK: Trump shooting task force unveils first demands as high-level probe kicks off …Read more

ABHORRENT AND ABOMINABLE: Man charged with hate crime, allegedly said ‘Free Palestine’ before knife attack near Brooklyn synagogue …Read more

NO DEAL: NY Republicans move to block future plea deals for alleged 9/11 plotters …Read more

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Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com.

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.