LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — Tech mogul Elon Musk spoke at a town hall in Pennsylvania on Saturday night to support Republican Donald Trump, downplaying the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and urging his supporters at the start of the Presidential election brag while calling mail-in ballots a “recipe for fraud.”
The casual session in a downtown Lancaster hotel ballroom touched on a dizzying range of topics, from space exploration and the Tesla cybertruck to immigration and the effectiveness of psychiatric drugs. The town hall was part of Musk’s efforts with his super PAC to strengthen Trump in swing states against Democrat Kamala Harris ahead of the November 5 presidential election.
Musk, whom Trump wanted to give a role in his administration if he wins next month, spent nearly two hours answering questions from town hall attendees. While most were laudatory and covered a variety of topics, one was particularly pointed: One man wanted to know what Musk would say about voters’ concerns that Trump’s election, given his role on January 6, 2021, would lead to a backsliding in democracy the US could lead to turmoil.
While calling the question a fair one, Musk also said that Trump’s supporters had described the Jan. 6 attack as “some kind of violent insurrection that just isn’t the case” – a reaction that drew applause from the crowd. More than 100 law enforcement officers were injured in the attack, some beaten with their own weapons, as a mob of Trump supporters, believing his lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him, stormed the Capitol to certify the votes to stop.
Musk also claimed that people “who say Trump is a threat to democracy are themselves a threat to democracy,” a comment that was also cheered by the crowd of several hundred people in the ballroom. Many more watched the event on X, the social media platform Musk bought two years ago.
Trump, he said, “actually told people not to be violent.” While Trump told the crowd on Jan. 6 to protest “peacefully and patriotically,” he also encouraged them to “fight like hell.” to stop Democrat Joe Biden from becoming president.
Musk, the world’s richest man, has pledged more than $70 million to aid Trump in the election and has encouraged his followers to vote early at events on behalf of his super PAC. Still, Musk, who expressed some of Trump’s concerns about the method, expressed his own doubts about the procedure. He said mail-in ballots should not be accepted in the future, calling them a strange anomaly that has become popular during the COVID-19 pandemic and increases the possibility of fraud.
There are a number of safeguards in place to protect mail-in ballots, including various ballot verification protocols, including all states requiring a voter’s signature.
The question about Jan. 6 was a blip during the back-and-forth with the crowd, which repeatedly praised Musk as a visionary and asked for advice and thoughts on education, arm wrestling, tax loopholes and whether he would buy the Chicago became White Sox. (He said he was a technician and had to pick his battles.)
Musk said he was in favor of “non-heavy-handed” regulation of artificial intelligence and railed against “woke religion” as “fundamentally a religion in danger of extinction.” He said the birth rate in the U.S. is a massive problem.
He said he believes Jesus was a real person who lived about 2,000 years ago, and when asked about the best advice he’s ever received, he replied, “I recommend studying physics.”
He also called a woman to the stage to present her with a huge check for $1 million. This was part of his promotion to donate $1 million a day to a voter in a swing state who signed his super PAC’s petition supporting the U.S. Constitution.
The freebies are fine for Josh Fox, 32, a UPS driver from Dillsburg, Pennsylvania.
“This is cool,” Fox said, waiting to get into the rally early Saturday. “It would be nice to have it.”
Fox, who plans to vote for Trump, dismissed suggestions that the money could violate federal election rules.
“It’s about supporting the Constitution and attracting people who support the Constitution,” Fox said.
