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Top 7 moments of Trump and Musk’s candid Hannity interview

February 19, 2025 | | Print Article

President Donald Trump and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) boss Elon Musk sat with Fox News’s Sean Hannity for a wide-ranging joint interview that was fully aired Tuesday evening.

During the interview, Musk ripped into Democrats over their attacks on DOGE, explained why he chose to vote for Trump in last year’s election, and revealed his personal experience with Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).

Trump meanwhile repeatedly praised Musk and his work at DOGE, defended himself from Democrat attacks, and addressed his recent settlement with Twitter/X.

Below are the top moments from the interview:

Musk Tears Into Democrats

Musk responded to the anti-DOGE attacks from Democrats and their media allies by stressing that all he’s trying to do is enact the will of the power.

“All we’re really trying to do here is restore the will of the people through the president,” he said. “And what we’re finding is there’s an unelected bureaucracy … there’s a vast federal bureaucracy that is implacably opposed to the president and the Cabinet.”

“And so if the will of the president is not implemented, and the president is representative of the people, that means the will of the people is not being implemented, and that means we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy,” he added.

Musk Explains Trump Vote

Musk revealed that while he was probably going to vote for Trump anyway last year, the Butler assassination attempt on the then-presidential candidate greatly accelerated the process.

“Well, I was going to do it anyway, but that was a precipitating event,” he said. “It sped it up, but I was going to do it anyway.”

Musk Reveals TDS Experience

Musk at one point revealed the moment he came face-to-face with TDS last year.

“So, like, I was at a friend’s birthday party in L.A., just a birthday dinner, and it was, like, a nice, quiet dinner, and everyone was behaving normally,” he began. “And then I happened to mention — this was before the election, like a month or two before — I happened to mention the president’s name, and it was like they got shot with a dart in the jugular that contained, like, the methamphetamine and rabies.”

“And they’re like, ‘Why?’ And I’m, like, ‘What is wrong — like, guys, like’ — you just can’t have, like, a normal conversation. And it’s like — it’s like they become completely irrational,” he added.

Trump Praises Musk

Trump repeatedly praised Musk, whom he said he became impressed by after the billionaire’s team successfully caught a rocket booster.

“Something that had an effect on me was when I saw the rocket ship come back and get grabbed, like, you grab a beautiful little baby, you grab your baby,” he said. “You can’t really have a rocket program if you’re going to dump $1 billion into the ocean every time you fly — you have to save it, and he saved it.”

The president also praised Musk and his team at DOGE for successfully implementing his executive orders.

“You write a beautiful executive [order] and you sign it, you assume it’s going to be done but it’s not,” he said.

Except in the case of DOGE.

“What he does is he takes it, and with his hundred geniuses … he gets it done. He’s a leader. He gets it done,” Trump added.

Trump Reveals DOGE Expectations

Trump at one point said he realistically expects DOGE to find around $1 trillion in potential cuts.

“As good as they are, they’re not going to find some contract that was crooked, you know crooked as hell,” he said. “And I mean this going to be so much that isn’t found. But, what is that I think he’s going to find $1 trillion.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Musk replied, adding that his goal is to trim the deficit and pay down the debt.

“If the deficit is not brought under control, America will go bankrupt,” Musk warned. “This is a very important thing for people to understand. A country is no different from an individual in that if an individual overspends, an individual can go bankrupt. And so can a country and the massive waste, fraud, and abuse that has been going on, which is leading to a $2 trillion a year deficit, that’s, that’s what the president was handed on Jan 20th, a $2 trillion deficit. It’s insane.”

Trump Addresses Inflation

Trump went on to defend himself from the fact that inflation has ticked up slightly since he assumed office a month ago.

“I’m only here for two and a half weeks, and inflation is back,” he began. “And they say, ‘Oh, Trump inflation!’ I had nothing to do with it. These people have run the country. They spent money like nobody has ever spent.”

“They were given $9 trillion to throw out the window — $9 trillion, and they spent it on the Green New Scam, I call it. It’s the greatest scam in the history of the country. One of them. We have a lot of them, I guess. But one of them,” he added.

Trump Addresses X Settlement

Trump also addressed Twitter/X’s recent decision to settle his longtime lawsuit for $10 million.

“It’s very low — I was looking to get much more money than that,” he said. “[Musk] got a big discount.”

Vivek Saxena
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