Trump-Musk fiery public row
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 6 June 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Trump has sought to downplay his public spat with Elon Musk, which erupted days after he left the president's administration. In an interview after hours of sparring, Mr Trump said things were 'going very well'. White House aides are reported to have arranged a call between the two men to broker a peace.
Also, we'll talk to the Danish politician who wants the European Union to ban children under the age of 15 from accessing social media.
And Jane Birkin’s original Hermès bag to go on sale in Paris.
(Photo credit: Reuters)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsAff from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. |
| 0:08.0 | I'm James Menendez. We journalists often like to use words like bust up or row to describe what are sometimes just disagreements. |
| 0:15.5 | In the case of what's just happened between President Trump and his self-appointed first buddy Elon Musk. Those descriptions |
| 0:21.5 | feel somehow inadequate. It was a gasp-inducing eruption of anger from both parties, as their |
| 0:27.5 | previously close relationship crumbled before the eyes of, well, the whole world, amplified, of course, |
| 0:33.9 | by the fact that both men have their own social networks. |
| 0:43.1 | At the centre of this war of words is what Mr Trump calls his big, beautiful bill of tax cuts and spending increases that impartial analysts say will add hugely to America's already huge pile of debt. |
| 0:51.1 | Well, it was Mr. Musk who fired the first salvo on Fox News. |
| 0:55.3 | We've got this enormous federal budget deficit, and it's a two trillion dollar deficit. |
| 1:00.7 | It keeps growing. Our interest payments are higher than our defense department budget. |
| 1:09.0 | That's, I think, was the real wake-up call for me. |
| 1:12.5 | Until yesterday, the world's richest man had gone after the bill, not the man behind it. |
| 1:17.2 | He was, after all, brought in to take a scythe to federal spending. |
| 1:21.2 | But yesterday, from around lunchtime in Washington, Mr. Musk wrote a series of posts on his ex-account, |
| 1:26.6 | which were designed to show that the |
| 1:28.1 | president had done a big U-turn. For example, in a 2012 post that we voiced up, Donald Trump said, |
| 1:35.4 | No member of Congress should be eligible for re-election if our country's budget is not balanced. |
| 1:41.6 | Deficits not allowed. Amen to that, said Elon Musk. I couldn't agree more. |
| 1:47.2 | The president responded while answering questions during the Oval Office welcome for the German |
| 1:51.4 | Chancellor Friedrich Mertz. He knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody. |
| 1:57.9 | And he never had a problem until right after he left and if you saw the statements he made |
| 2:02.5 | about me which i'm sure you can get very easily it's very fresh on tape he said the most beautiful |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 18 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.