STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The world's richest man interviewed Donald Trump last evening. Elon Musk said beforehand, quote, "entertainment guaranteed." He had time to say that because the interview on X started 42 minutes late. The site once known as Twitter did a lot of traffic last evening as people asked what was happening. The owner of the site claimed without evidence that his site faced a cyberattack, although the real problem appeared to be technical issues, as had happened to Musk in a similar situation before. Anyway, he did talk with the Republican presidential candidate, and NPR's Bobby Allyn listened. Bobby, good morning.
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: Hey, Steve.
INSKEEP: Two hours of discussion. How'd it go?
ALLYN: Well, it depends how you measure it. In terms of new information, there wasn't very much, but there were some memorable moments. Trump said his assassination attempt renewed his faith in God. He said several times that he's worried about what he's calling nuclear warming. It's the first time I ever heard that phrase. Apparently, he's referring to the threat of nukes around the world.
INSKEEP: OK, kind of playing off global warming, which he dismisses.
ALLYN: Exactly. That's right.
INSKEEP: Go on.
ALLYN: That's right. Now, the two of them didn't exactly have the best chemistry. Musk lobbed all sorts of friendly questions his way, but Trump would use that as an opportunity to just rant on about all sorts of things. Then Musk would chime in and give his own kind of speech. It seemed like they were talking past each other quite a bit, but they did come together at times. Here, the two of them are agreeing on immigration enforcement.
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ELON MUSK: It's just not possible for the United States to absorb, you know, everyone from Earth or, you know, even a few percent of the rest of Earth. It's just not possible.
DONALD TRUMP: Well, Elon, we're going to have...
MUSK: So that's...
TRUMP: Just to finish this up, we're going to have the largest deportation in history of this country. And we have no choice.
ALLYN: Yeah, and they also agreed on things like cutting government regulations, cracking down on violence in big cities and tackling inflation.
INSKEEP: Well, this is the first time we've had such a major social media platform run by a single person who openly roots for one presidential candidate. Musk has endorsed Trump. What do you make of that?
ALLYN: Yeah, well, before Musk, Twitter's executives really went out of their way to not put their finger on the scale when it came to politics. Of course, Twitter would defend against all sorts of allegations of bias, and after the January 6 attacks on the Capitol, Twitter suspended Trump. And that really energized Trump supporters as proof of bias. But there wasn't this top-down political agenda as overtly as it is now. What we heard last night, Steve, I think, is really a full embracing of Trump as a candidate by Musk. And what's almost as interesting as Twitter's pivot was hearing Musk himself talk about his own political revolution.
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MUSK: So they try to paint me as, like, a far-right guy, which is absurd because I'm, like, making electric vehicles and, you know, solar and batteries, helping with the environment. And I actually - you know, I supported Obama. I stood in line for six hours to shake Obama's hand when he was running for president.
ALLYN: Yeah, and he brought up this anecdote as a way to appeal to moderate Democrats as saying, hey, I used to be like one of you, but now he believes in Trump.
INSKEEP: Well, is the presidential campaign helping his business?
ALLYN: Well, the 2024 presidential campaign is certainly energizing the platform. I mean, many key moments have played out on the site. President Biden announced that he was stepping aside on X, many other viral moments from both campaigns have started on X. But, right, this new momentum isn't yet translating into any kind of financial success. Advertising is still down 60% from last year, and that does remain X's biggest problem.
INSKEEP: And we should mention that Musk says he's willing to interview Kamala Harris as well. Bobby, thanks so much. Thanks, Steve. NPR's Bobby Allyn.
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INSKEEP: Tim Walz is making his first solo campaign stop today. He made a string of stops with Vice President Harris last week after she chose him as her running mate. Now the Minnesota governor is scheduled to meet with one of America's largest labor unions at their convention in Los Angeles, Calif. NPR labor and workplace correspondent Andrea Hsu is here. Andrea, good morning.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: I'm thinking about unions here as a kind of building block of the Democratic Party, so who's he talking with?
HSU: Yeah, well, the union is the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. They have about 1.5 million members, mostly state and local government workers but also cultural workers, like people who work at museums and libraries and zoos. And, of course, California is not a swing state, but these members have come to this gathering from all over the country, including from swing states. So this is really about building on the momentum, the excitement that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have been riding since each of them entered this race, really. And Walz is a former union member himself from his schoolteacher days. He's going to highlight everything Vice President Harris has done for workers and will continue to do if she's elected president. Here he was making a similar case to union auto workers in Michigan last week.
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TIM WALZ: It's very simple. She stands on the side of the American people and the American worker.
INSKEEP: OK, so what is the role of labor unions in the Democratic Party coalition in 2024?
HSU: Well, traditionally unions support Democrats, and the members who show up at these events don't need convincing, but they're the people who can be out there doing the convincing. Here's what Walz told the auto workers at that stop in Michigan.
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WALZ: This is a bit of preaching to the choir, but the choir needs to sing right now.
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WALZ: The choir needs to sing.
HSU: So for Walz, these events are like a rallying cry. Like, go out and talk to your friends and neighbors. Get them on board.
INSKEEP: Well, what is Walz passing on as a message about former President Trump?
HSU: Well, both he and Harris are noting that the differences between the two tickets could not be greater. One supports organized labor and the workers who want to be a part of that, while the other simply doesn't. But, Steve, you know, Trump, of course, does have a base of support among some union workers. For example, I visited an aluminum foundry in northern Wisconsin last month in a solidly red part of that state. But he's been out there reminding people of everything Trump did while he was president to weaken unions, and especially government employee unions like the one he is addressing today. And he's been warning about Project 2025. That's the blueprint for a new Trump administration that was pulled together by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. It talks about firing civil servants and replacing them with political appointees, even possibly banning public employee unions altogether.
INSKEEP: What do these unions think about Tim Walz?
HSU: Well, labor advocates have been thrilled with him. Last year after Democrats in Minnesota gained control of both the House and the Senate, Walz signed this flurry of pro-worker laws aimed at protecting the most vulnerable workers in the state, including, you know, nursing home workers and Amazon warehouse workers. So in Minnesota, all workers now earn paid sick days, unlike much of the country. And in a couple of years, they'll have paid family and medical leave as well.
Now, Republicans in the state have pointed to all of this as evidence of just how far left Tim Walz truly is. They're saying, look, he's not someone who's going to work across the aisle if he doesn't have to. And the Trump campaign has seized on this. They describe him as excessively liberal. Former President Trump, who likes nicknames, has come up with one for the Minnesota governor. He's been calling him Comrade Walz.
INSKEEP: OK, NPR labor and workplace correspondent Andrea Hsu. Thanks for the insights, really appreciate it.
HSU: You're, welcome, Steve.
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INSKEEP: Now let's probe a mystery surrounding the capture of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada. He is one of Mexico's most notorious drug lords. He was flown to the United States last month, but neither the U.S. nor Mexico have been saying much about his capture. Now El Mayo himself is releasing details in a public letter, which NPR's Eyder Peralta has been reading. Good morning.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: What's the letter say?
PERALTA: So, look, from the beginning, this story just seemed a little too simple. U.S. officials arrested Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada at a New Mexico airport alongside another top leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin Guzman Lopez. And they hinted that it was an operation, but oddly, one that happened without any violence. The Americans eventually did say, look, we negotiated with Joaquin Guzman Lopez so he could turn himself in. But without telling us, he brought us this much bigger fish. And then Zambada, in this public letter, said that he was betrayed by Guzman, the son of his former partner, El Chapo Guzman, the guy who he had known from the time he was a baby.
Zambada said that Guzman tricked him into thinking he was going to meet with the governor of Sinaloa. And instead, he said, Guzman tied him up and flew him to the U.S. And this is eye-popping for the drama but also because Zambada is essentially alleging collusion between the state and organized crime. He says he was not only expecting to meet with important government officials but that he also showed up to the meeting with a police commander who he says had run his security for years.
INSKEEP: Oh, wow. So he's telling a story and also alleging a kind of scandal. Well, what is the Mexican government saying?
PERALTA: The president of Mexico has spent the last few weeks saying Mexico had nothing to do with this. But yesterday, as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador reacted to these accusations of collusion, he got defensive.
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PRESIDENT ANDRES MANUEL LOPEZ OBRADOR: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "What makes the U.S. think," he said, "that by arresting a famous drug dealer they can fix their addiction problem?" He said this arrest, like others in the past, are part of an American strategy to tar foreign governments, to allege collusion in order to subjugate them. But part of what the Mexican president is reacting to is that this arrest could open a can of worms. Everyone in Mexico whispers about the collusion between the drug cartels and the government. But these are no longer whispers. This is the top drug lord putting words on paper and naming names. And this is sensitive because it could lead not just to the downfall of politicians, but it can spark violent retaliations among armed groups.
INSKEEP: Oh, which I know you have been reporting on. What have you seen when you have left Mexico City, where you are, and looked at southern Mexico?
PERALTA: We haven't seen an explosion of violence. I was reporting on the fighting between the Sinaloa cartel and the invading Jalisco cartel. And it's heartbreaking. I saw farm workers forcefully recruited into cartel work. I saw whole families who had to flee their homes, and then when they came back, they found their houses had been looted and that their farm animals were gone or dead. I know that when these arrests happen, we tend to focus on the police work or the geopolitics of it. But on the ground, the turf wars run by these men, they're painful. And it's likely that the civilians in Mexico will be the ones who will suffer the most in whatever the fallout of these arrests turn out to be.
INSKEEP: NPR's Eyder Peralta. Always a pleasure to hear from you, sir. Thank you so much.
PERALTA: Thank you, Steve. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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