(upbeat music) Donald Trump and Elon Musk sit down for a highly anticipated interview. - Again, it's about the American dream. You don't hear about the American dream anymore, Elon. You don't hear you're the American dream, and that's who he says. - I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief, John Bickley. It's Tuesday, August 13th, and this is Morning Wire. (upbeat music) Vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance goes on a whirlwind knee-ablitz. - She only speaks to voters behind a teleprompter. Everything is scripted. She doesn't have her policy positions out there. - And as stolen valor claims stack up against Tim Walls, we talked to the man who replaced him in Iraq. - I was cowardly to just be like, I'm not gonna go. I mean, you can't pick and choose where your nation wants you to go. - Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. (upbeat music) - Hey guys, producer Brandon here. I've been learning to speak German with Babel, and I can't wait until I visit Germany and easily order my favorite German cuisine. Spat's the only one? Babel is designed by real people for real conversations, and their quick 10-minute lessons are ready to get you talking your new language in just three weeks. And now there's a special limited time deal for our listeners. Get up to 60% off your Babel subscription at babble.com/wire. That's spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com/wire for 60% off. Rules and restrictions may apply. (upbeat music) - Former President Donald Trump returned to social media platform X on Monday with a highly anticipated live interview with the company's owner, billionaire Elon Musk. - Here to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestigiacamo. Hey, man. So let's get right to this interview. Set the scene here for us. - Hey there, John. Well, first this conversation lasted around two hours, and it garnered more than a million live listeners throughout the stream. So big numbers there. And it covered a wide range of topics, like immigration, government waste, foreign policy, free speech. And of course, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It did start about 40 minutes late and Musk said that was due to a cyber attack. But once they got rolling and Musk opened up by asking about the assassination attempt on Trump's life, Musk actually publicly endorsed Trump when that happened. Here's some audio on that topic. You can't fake bravery under such such a sense as the courage is instinctual or it is not. It's not a rehearsed action. And so I just wanna say that, I think a lot of people admire your courage under fire there. - Thank you very much. I appreciate it. The incredible thing though, when you talk about the odds, you had to be exactly at that angle. And the bullet came whizzing by hitting my ear. When you think of the odds of that, I say an act of God, it's a miracle that it happened. And I'm honored by it. I'm honored by it. - Trump also went after Harris and the Democrats for what he called a coup against President Biden. And he took a swipe at Harris for basically refusing any questions from reporters since she became the effective Democrat nominee. - And by the way, you think Biden could do this interview? Do you think that Kamala could do this interview? They would take a pass on you. - No, they could not. - So they don't need Elon screaming out questions. It's pretty sad that somebody that does this for a living can't answer a question or is afraid to do an interview. - Another standout moment was when Musk explained that he is a moderate politically who strongly supported Barack Obama. He now though feels that it's imperative Trump wins this election. - So this is to people out there who are in the moderate camp to say, I think you should support Donald Trump or President. And I think it's actually a very important junction in the road and we're in deep trouble if it goes the other way. - Well, I want to thank you. And I actually always did think of you as somewhat left. I must say that. So it's even more of an honor to have your endorsement. - Now this was a big return to this social media platform for Trump who was controversially banned following the Capitol riot in 2021. What did Trump say about that? - Right. Trump was permanently banned from the platform while he was still serving on his final days as president. That was of course before Musk bought the platform. Musk has been a fierce advocate for free speech and he reinstated Trump's axe account almost as soon as he took it over. As for Trump, other than posting his mugshot last summer, the former president has not posted to X until yesterday. He published a flurry of posts ahead of the interview. His very first post asked the American people, "Are you better off now than you were when I was president?" He also published numerous videos. Here's some audio from one of the ads he posted. - They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom. They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you. They're not coming after me. They're coming after you. And I just happen to be standing in their way and I will never be moving. - In ahead of this interview, we actually saw the EU target Musk about this particular issue. What happened there? They threatened Musk on Monday that he needs to censor quote-unquote harmful content or else his company could be punished. The letter comes after Post-Un-X highlighted the alarming events in the UK involving migrants and Muslim gangs. Notably, Musk back in December said that the European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal to basically quietly censor speech without telling anyone. And this way, X would not be fined. Musk said he shot that deal down, but other platforms did accept that. And as he made very, very clear yesterday, he's definitely not backing down. I actually can't repeat what he posted, but it amounted to a giant no to the EU's demands. - Musk clearly not intimidated by the EU's threats. Meanwhile, Trump back on Twitter. - Yeah, in a big way. - Amanda, thanks for reporting. - You're welcome. - Hey guys, producer Brandon here, balanced in nature is my go-to source for whole food ingredients. Balance of nature takes fruits and vegetables, they freeze dry them, turn them into a powder, and then they put them into a capsule. The capsules are completely void of additives, fillers, extracts, synthetics, pesticides, or added sugar. The only thing if balanced in nature fruit and veggie capsules are fruits and veggies. So go to balanceofnature.com and use promo code wire for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer, plus get a free bottle of fiber and spice. That's balanceofnature.com promo code wire. (upbeat music) - JD Vance has been busy on news shows in recent days, the Republican nominee for vice president set for interviews on ABC, CBS, and CNN and touched on issues ranging from abortion to the border. - Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about Vance's media circuit and the Democratic tickets, noticeable absence from the airwaves. So Tim, how have these interviews gone so far for Vance? - Generally, he's been good at fending off hostile questions and turning the focus back on the Harris walls ticket. A consistent theme throughout the interviews was Vance defending and explaining his pro-family approach to politics. With Margaret Brennan of CBS, he said he wanted to expand the child tax credit, for instance. CNN's Dana Bash was one of the most hostile to Vance and spent much of her time questioning Vance's attacks on Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Here's an exchange about Walz's stolen valor controversy. - I've seen a lot of statements from veterans, including those you served with saying, it's just untoward to be criticizing somebody who served for 24 years. - Dana, I'm not interested in the ad hominem. I've heard from a lot of veterans groups who criticized Tim Walz. The question is, he said he served in war and he didn't. That is a dishonesty. I really, I couldn't care less what one or the other person says about it. I care about what the truth is. The truth is that Tim Walz didn't tell the truth. And importantly, Dana, this is about Kamala Harris' judgment. And I think that when you ask, why has Kamala Harris allowed the border to be wide open? Why has Kamala Harris supported policies that have promoted the increase in inflation? I think it goes to the heart of her judgment. And I think that that's what we should be talking about. - Now, what about the platform that Trump and Vance are running on? Did we learn anything new about their policies? - Nothing new, but this was a good test of Vance's ability to be a spokesman for Trump's priorities. Another hostile exchange was prompted by ABC's Jonathan Karl. Karl defended Harris' border record and pushed Vance on Trump's plan to deport illegal aliens. - If you're not willing to deport a lot of people, you're not willing to have a border when there are 20 million illegal aliens in our country. - 15 million people, this is like, I mean. - What, Jonathan, I think it's the wrong attitude to take of it. - Okay, so if you go out to the doors and ask people for the paper. - Well, again, I do. I think there's a wrong attitude towards it, right? There's 20 million people here illegally. You start with what's achievable. I think that if you deport a lot of violent criminals and frankly, if you make it harder to hire a legal labor, which undercuts the wages of American workers, I think you go a lot of the way to solving the legal immigration problem. - And abortion was a topic in every interview. Here's Vance defending Trump's position on that. - What the president has said very clearly is that abortion policy should be made by the states, right? You, of course, want to make sure that any medicine is safe that it's prescribed in the right way and so forth. But I think that what we really want is when states and voters in those states make decisions, we, of course, want the states and the federal government to respect those decisions. And that's what President Trump has said. It's consistently, we need to get out of the culture war side of the abortion issue. We need to let the states decide their specific abortion policy. - Now, many have noted that Vance's appearances on these shows sort of highlights the lack of media scrutiny on Harris and walls. So far, neither have sat for any interviews like these ones that Vance has been sitting for. Did that come up at all? - That's right, Harris and walls have been noticeably absent from the media. And that's opened up a lane of attack from the Trump campaign. One that Vance hit on throughout these interviews. Here he is on CNN. - Are you gonna debate Tim Walts? - Of course, I want to debate Tim Walts. I think it's important. And I think that it goes to a very fundamental difference between the Trump Vance ticket and our opposition. We believe in talking to the media. We believe in answering questions. We believe in debating. I think it's really important. I mean, look, I'm asking the American people to make me, their vice president. It's really important to stand before the American people to make that case. And I'm gonna keep on doing it. In whatever form I get the opportunity. - Even with this public pressure from Republicans, Harris and walls have studiously avoided tough questions from the media. The most they promised is a potential sit down by Kamala Harris sometime next month. - Right, well, so far they've been allowed to stick to scripted rallies and campaign commercials. Tim, thanks for reporting. - Thanks for having me. (upbeat music) The military record of Democratic vice presidential nominee, Tim Walls has come under intense scrutiny. Walls has claimed to have retired at a higher level than he did and that he carried, quote, "weapons of war in war," despite retiring before his battalion was deployed. - Thomas Barons became the command sergeant major after Walls left and he's been drawing attention to this issue for years. The following is an excerpt of our interview with Barons. Tom, first of all, thank you so much for joining us. And thank you for your service. - You are welcome, thank you. - Let's start with what prompted your involvement in this entire story, which has really taken over the national headlines. By 2016, you'd begun to call attention to the fact that Tim Walls was mischaracterizing his military service. What was he saying and what did you initially do about it? - Well, you know, it originally started even way before that. I mean, when we actually got deployed, he got elected to Congress. I mean, he was retired command sergeant major of this and that, and it was, I'm in the first district where he was our congressman and he really didn't see this advertising out there and brought it up to my colonel. I said, you know what, just can't, what are we gonna do with this guy? I mean, he's lying about his rank and I did the right thing. I wrote a letter, personal letter, as a constituent to him in Congress. I said, thank you for your 24 years of service. Thank you for doing what you do for veterans. You didn't achieve the rank of command sergeant major. Please refrain from doing that from now on. Go just set the record straight, tell everybody that, well, I made a mistake, whatever you gotta do, but I never heard a response. I sent up to all of the people that were, you know, on the committees that he was on, like the Armed Services Committee and never heard a word back many, many. Then two years later, he's run for governor and was like, well, August, it was like, beat sake. Now I gotta, you know, get off my tractor and go make a banner to put it in my bin and do whatever. They're trying to get into public out there, no one that you're a fraud. And it got suppressed by the media then. They got brought out more in 2022, but, you know, now it's where it's at. - All right, so you initially reached out to him, personally got no response back. And then you started to feel when he ran for governor that maybe you had to take this up a notch in terms of public awareness. And the media, you say, just ignored your claims. - Well, they not only ignored it. I mean, the Star Tribune reporter, I sent this to him. He got back to me, he said, well, I better your story. It's true. We're looking at publishing an article. And this was like late October of '18. Then he got back to me and he said, well, my editor next to it because they said it's too close to the election and they didn't want to influence the election. And maybe not exact words were pretty close. And I talked to myself, what the hell is this? North Korea, I couldn't believe it. I was like, well, this is a true story. This should influence the election. People should be able to read this and determine if this is who they want to vote for governor. And they just hit it. - Now you've characterized this as him abandoning his men. What was the impact of him leaving? How did that impact these particular men? There's a lot of them, hundreds of them under his command, correct? - I think it's like a depleting balloon and something like that happens. It's like the wind is taking out of the sails. Everything is like okay, we're full steam ahead. We're getting ready. We got our leadership in place. We're going to get ready. We're preparing for war. And all of a sudden, the sails are straight up and down with no wind in there. I mean, that's it. You're just done. Everybody was in just the shock that who does that, who believes their kids hanging on something like this. - And so you filled that role. You took over and led that battalion. Can you tell us about that? What was that experience like? - Well, it was an absolute honor to even have that thought out to me. It was like, I know I can sort of my country in a greater capacity. I was like, okay, I'm on board. I went around to the unit, said, well, he's born on gear. Let's get ready and let's go. - Look for the rest of our interview with retired Command Sergeant Major Thomas Behrens to be released later this week. - Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know. (upbeat music) (clicks)
Elon Musk hosts Donald Trump in a highly anticipated X interview, Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance hits the legacy media circuit, and we talk to the man who replaced Tim Walz after he left the military. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.
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