The former president’s favor for one famed endorsement was not without some ribbing over one of the tech entrepreneur’s businesses.
“I love the car…but…you’re challenged.”
(Video: Fox News)
While the Democratic Party shifted from “Ridin’ with Biden” to currently cringing with Kamala as Vice President Kamala Harris’ mulled her own running mate, former President Donald Trump held strong from GOP frontrunner to nominee, picking up influential backers along the way.
Among them was the “smart as you get” CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, whom the president reiterated praise for Friday with a caveat on the practical limitations of electric vehicles.
Speaking at Turning Point Faith’s “The Believers Summit” in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump didn’t beat around the bush when he asserted, “I love the car. I think it’s great. And some people love ’em and some people want ’em. But I think if you’re gonna go long distances, it’s a little bit — you’re challenged. You’re challenged.”
In support of his point, the onetime commander-in-chief had raised the importance of American manufacturing and infrastructure as he called out, “We don’t want to have an electric car where everybody has an electric car that doesn’t go far, is made in China, costs too much.”
“And by the way, and I wanna thank Elon Musk for endorsing me by the way, I have to tell you,” Trump told the crowd. “And I said, ‘You know, Elon, remember, I love electric cars. I think your car is great. I love it, but it’s not for everybody.'”
The president added that the endorsement from the world’s richest man didn’t come with any strings as he went on, “And you know, he never said to me, ‘Look, I’m gonna endorse you, but you know, you have to-‘”
Turning to brass tacks, Trump noted, “You know in the Midwest, someplace in the Midwest, they put up eight charging stations. You know that, right? They spent $9 billion. Now, you know what a charging station — it’s like a gas pump. It’s the equivalent of a gas pump for electricity, right? It’s a little thing. They spend $9 billion. That would mean that if they did it throughout the country, all the locations designated, it would cost $5 trillion. So, our country would have to file for bankruptcy.”
Previously, the GOP leader had marveled at the innovations of Musk’s companies, including SpaceX for engineering reusable landing rockets, something that would have taken the federal government “another 50-100 years. But it was Elon!”
“I said, ‘That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’ And you say how long would it take government to come up with that one, I don’t think they ever heard of it. Perhaps they still haven’t heard of it. But, you know, he’s a very advanced person and he’s doing other things that are great…we have to make life good for our smart people,” Trump had said at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “And he’s as smart as you get.”
Electric vehicle owners have reported their own hardships on the road even with pre-planning their travels as even an Axios reporter had lamented being “overconfident in our car’s driving range” when journeying from Florida to Michigan where she and her husband had “to practically limp to a charging station as the battery warnings flashed ever-more urgent messages.”
A similar experience for another driver over Labor Day Weekend 2023 turned a drive that should’ve taken a few hours into an overnight ordeal due to inoperable chargers, lines, and excessive delays for slow charging.
At the time of this post, Musk had not publicly responded to Trump’s comments at Friday’s event, but he had reacted to the announcement that the president would be returning to Butler, Pennsylvania to honor the victims of the rally where a would-be assassin tried to take his life.
On X, the billionaire simply wrote of the decision, “Based.”
Based
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 26, 2024
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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