Musk calls on people to register to vote

CNN
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In his first appearance with Donald Trump on the campaign trail, billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday urged people to register to vote as he called Democrats a threat to democracy.

“Register to vote, okay? And get everyone you know and everyone you don't know. Drag to register to vote. There are just two days left to register to vote in Georgia and Arizona. Forty-eight hours. Text people now. Now. And then make sure they actually vote,” Musk said at the former president’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “If they don’t, this will be the last election. That’s my prediction.”

Musk's claim sounded similar to the warnings allies of Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden often make about Trump. But it is the former president, not Democrats, who spoke to a crowd before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and then remained inactive for more than three hours while the events unfolded there.

The billionaire owner of They want to take away your right to bear arms. They want to effectively disenfranchise you.”

Musk, who endorsed Trump over the summer and helped launch a super PAC that has already spent tens of millions on the presidential election, painted a bleak picture of the election's stakes and argued that free speech is just as important in America be like preserving the Constitution will only exist if Trump beats Harris.

Musk's comments were something of a distraction from the overall theme of Trump's rally in Butler, the site of a failed assassination attempt against the former president this summer. In his first visit to the site since then, Trump made a point of noting the location of the rally, and early in his speech he paid tribute to Corey Contempore, a firefighter who was fatally shot at the rally. Trump also thanked the Secret Service for his protection.

“Exactly 12 weeks ago this evening, a cold-blooded assassin on this site sought to silence me and the greatest movement,” Trump said.

The list of speakers was more prominent than a typical Trump rally. Speakers before the former president included his vice president, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, as well as son Eric Trump, RNC co-chair and daughter-in-law Lara Trump and conservative activist Scott Presler. During a moment of silence to remember the victims of the previous Trump rally in Butler, opera singer Christopher Macchio sang “Ave Maria.”

During the rally, Trump said that his supporters deserve a government that does not pander to special interests or lobbyists and that his opponents are actively trying to block that goal.

“Over the past eight years, those who would stop us from achieving that future have vilified me, impeached me, accused me, tried to remove me from the ballot — and who knows, maybe even tried to Kill me?” Trump suggested this baselessly. “But I have never stopped fighting for you and never will.”

After the assassination attempt at his Florida golf club last month, Trump tried to blame Biden and Harris for the second assassination attempt, claiming: “Their rhetoric is getting me shot.”

Law enforcement is still investigating the motives of the suspects in both assassination attempts, and there is no evidence that Trump's political opponents are in any way involved.

CNN's Kate Sullivan and Shania Shelton contributed to this story.