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--:-- Steve Inskeep: Former President Trump is back on X. He rarely posts there, but put up some messages and also showed up to chat with the owner, his supporter Elon Musk.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What did the interview reveal about Musk's evolving business? I'm Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is campaigning solo today. He'll meet with one of the nation's largest labor unions to promote the cause of Vice President Harris.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It's very simple. She stands on the side of the American people and the American worker. What role do unions play in this year's Democratic coalition?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Also, a public letter from a drug cartel leader is raising questions about possible collusion between organized crime and the government of Mexico. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: To get matched with a therapist, visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR for 10% off your first month.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: The world's richest man interviewed Donald Trump last evening. Elon Musk said beforehand, quote, entertainment guaranteed.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: 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.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The owner of the site claimed without evidence that his site faced a cyber attack, although the real problem appeared to be technical issues, as had happened to Musk in a similar situation before.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Anyway, he did talk with the Republican presidential candidate and NPR's Bobby Allen listened. Bobby, good morning.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Hey, Steve. Two hours of discussion. How'd it go?
--:-- Bobby Allen: Well, it depends how you measure it. In terms of new information, there wasn't very much, but there were some memorable moments.
--:-- Bobby Allen: 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.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Apparently, he's referring to the threat of nukes around the world. Okay, kind of playing off global warming, which he did.
--:-- Bobby Allen: 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.
--:-- Bobby Allen: 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.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Here, the two of them are agreeing on immigration enforcement. It's just not possible for the United States to absorb everyone from Earth or even a few percent of the rest of Earth. It's just not possible.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Well, Elon, we're going to have, just to finish this up, we're going to have the largest deportation in history of this country, and we have no choice.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Yeah, and they also agreed on things like cutting government regulations, cracking down on violence in big cities, and tackling inflation.
--:-- Bobby Allen: 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.
--:-- Bobby Allen: What do you make of that?
--:-- Bobby Allen: 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.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Of course, Twitter would defend against all sorts of allegations of bias. And after the January 6th attacks on the Capitol, Twitter suspended Trump.
--:-- Bobby Allen: 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.
--:-- Bobby Allen: What we heard last night, Steve, I think is really a full embracing of Trump as a candidate by Musk.
--:-- Bobby Allen: And what's almost as interesting as Twitter's pivot was hearing Musk himself talk about his own political evolution.
--:-- Bobby Allen: 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 the environment.
--:-- Bobby Allen: And I actually I, you know, I supported Obama. I stood in line for six hours to shake Obama's hand when when he was running for president.
--:-- Bobby Allen: 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.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Well, is the presidential campaign helping his business?
--:-- Bobby Allen: Well, the 2024 presidential campaign is certainly energizing the platform. I mean, many key moments have played out on the site.
--:-- Bobby Allen: President Biden announced that he was stepping aside on X. Many other viral moments from both campaigns have started on X.
--:-- Bobby Allen: But right, this new momentum isn't yet translating into any kind of financial success. Advertising is still down 60 percent from last year, and that does remain X's biggest problem.
--:-- Bobby Allen: And we should mention that Musk says he's willing to interview Kamala Harris as well.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Bobby, thanks so much.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Thanks, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And Pierce, Bobby Allen.
--:-- Steve 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.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now the Minnesota governor is scheduled to meet with one of America's largest labor unions at their convention in Los Angeles, California.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: NPR Labor and Workplace correspondent Andrea Hsu is here. Andrea, good morning.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Good morning. I'm thinking about unions here as a kind of building block of the Democratic Party. So who's he talking with?
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Yeah, well, the union is the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. They have about one and a half million members, mostly state and local government workers, but also cultural workers like people who work at museums and libraries and zoos.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: 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.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: 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.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: 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.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Here he was making a similar case to union auto workers in Michigan last week. It very simple. She stands on the side of the American people and the American worker.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: OK, so what is the role of labor unions in the Democratic Party coalition in 2024?
--:-- Andrea 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.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Here's what Walls told the auto workers at that stop in Michigan. This is a bit of preaching to the choir. But the choir needs to sing right now. The choir needs to sing.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: So for Walls, these events are like a rallying cry, like go out and talk to your friends and neighbors. Get them on board.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Well, what is Walls passing on as a message about former President Trump?
--:-- Andrea 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.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: 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.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: 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.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: 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.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: It talks about firing civil servants and replacing them with political appointees, even possibly banning public employee unions altogether.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: What do these unions think about Tim Walz?
--:-- Andrea 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 nursing home workers and Amazon warehouse workers.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: 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.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Now, Republicans in the state have pointed to all of this is evidence of just how far left Tim Walls truly is. They're saying, look, he's not someone who's going to work across the aisle if he doesn't have to.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: And the Trump campaign has seized on this. They describe him as excessively liberal.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: Former President Trump, who likes nicknames, has come up with one for the Minnesota governor. He's been calling him Comrade Walls.
--:-- Andrea Hsu: OK. NPR Labor and Workplace correspondent Andrea Hsu. Thanks for the insights. Really appreciate it.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: You're welcome, Andrea.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now let's probe a mystery surrounding the capture of Ismael Elmayo 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.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now Elmayo himself is releasing details in a public letter, which NPR's Ada Peralta has been reading. Good morning.
--:-- Ada Peralta: Good morning, Steve. What's the letter say?
--:-- Ada Peralta: So look, from the beginning, the 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.
--:-- Ada Peralta: And they hinted that it was in operation, but oddly one that happened without any violence.
--:-- Ada Peralta: The Americans eventually did say, look, we were negotiated with Joaquin Guzman Lopez so he could turn himself in. But without telling us, he brought us this much bigger fish.
--:-- Ada Peralta: 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.
--:-- Ada Peralta: 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.
--:-- Ada Peralta: This is eye for the drama but also because Sambada is essentially alleging collusion between the state and organized crime.
--:-- Ada Peralta: 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.
--:-- Ada Peralta: Oh, wow. So he's telling a story and also alleging a kind of scandal.
--:-- Ada Peralta: Well, what is the Mexican government saying?
--:-- Ada Peralta: The president of Mexico has spent the last few weeks saying Mexico had nothing to do with this. But yesterday, as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reacted to these accusations of collusion, he got defensive.
--:-- Ada Peralta: What makes the U.S. think, he said, that by arresting a famous drug dealer they can fix their addiction problem?
--:-- Ada Peralta: 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.
--:-- Ada Peralta: But part of what the Mexican president is reacting to is that this arrest could open a can of worms.
--:-- Ada Peralta: 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.
--:-- Ada Peralta: And this is sensitive because it could lead not just to the downfall of politicians, but it can spark violent retaliations among armed groups.
--:-- Ada Peralta: 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?
--:-- Ada 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.
--:-- Ada Peralta: 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.
--:-- Ada Peralta: I know that when these arrests happened, we tend to focus on the police work or the geopolitics of But on the ground, the turf wars run by these men, they're painful.
--:-- Ada Peralta: 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.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: NPR's Ada Peralta, always a pleasure to hear from you, sir.
--:-- Ada Peralta: Thank you so much.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And that's a first for this Tuesday, August 13th. I'm Steve Inskeep. Your next listen is Consider This from NPR News.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Tim Walls has been accused by Republicans of misrepresenting his military record. So what is the story of his 24 years of service? Listen to Consider This.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Today's Up First was edited by Julia Redpath, Pallavi Gogoi, Miguel Macias, Jenea Williams, and H.J. Mai.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Lily Quiroz.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent, and our technical director is the ever-patient Zach Coleman.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Join us tomorrow.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: Keep your business in the know at USPS.com slash in the know.
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