Associated Press

LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — The tech mogul Elon Muskspeaking at a town hall Saturday night in Pennsylvania to support the Republican Donald Trumpreduced The January 6 attack at the US Capitol and urged supporters to vote early in the presidential swing state while describing mail-in ballots as a “recipe for fraud.”

The free-wheeling session in a Lancaster city center hotel ballroom touched on a dizzying array of topics, from space exploration and the Tesla cyber truck to immigration and the effectiveness of psychiatric drugs. The town hall was part of Musk’s super PAC effort to help boost Trump in swing states ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election against Democrats Kamala Harris.

Musk, whom Trump has promised 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 complimentary and covered a variety of topics, one in particular stood out: One man wanted to know what Musk would say to voters’ concerns that Trump’s election could lead to a rollback of democracy in the US, given his role from January 6, 2021. , insurrection.

While he called it a fair question, Musk also said the Jan. 6 attack by Trump supporters was being called “some kind of violent insurrection, which is just not the case” — a response that drew applause from the crowd. More than 100 law enforcement personnel were injured in the attack, some beaten with their own weaponswhen a lot of Trump supporters who believed his lies that the 2020 election was stolen of him stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of votes.

Musk also argued that people “who say Trump is a threat to democracy are themselves a threat to democracy,” a comment that was also applauded by the crowd of several hundred packed into the ballroom. Many more watched the event on X, the social media platform Musk acquired 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 and encouraged them to “fight like hell” to prevent Democrat Joe Biden from becoming president.

Musk, the richest man in the world, has has committed more than 70 million dollars to boost Trump in the election and, at events on behalf of his super PAC, encouraged supporters to accept early voting. Still, echoing some of Trump’s fears about the method, Musk raised doubts about the process. 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 raising the prospect of fraud.

Is there a the number of guarantees to protect mail-in ballots with different ballot verification protocols, including each state requiring a voter’s signature.

The Jan. 6 question was an outlier during the back-and-forth with the crowd in which Musk was repeatedly praised as a visionary and asked for advice and thoughts on education, arm wrestling, tax loopholes and whether he would buy Chicago. White Sox. (He said he’s a tech guy and has to pick his battles.)

Musk has said he favors “not heavy-handed” regulation of artificial intelligence and criticized “woke religion” as “basically an extinctionist religion.” He said the U.S. birth rate is a significant concern.

He said he believes Jesus was a real person who lived about 2,000 years ago, and when asked for the best advice he ever received, replied: “I recommend studying physics.”

He also called a woman on stage to hand her a large $1 million check, part of his promotion to give $1 million a day to a swing state voter who signed the super PAC petition that upholds the US Constitution.

The gifts are good for Josh Fox, 32, a UPS driver from Dillsburg, Pennsylvania.

“It’s great,” Fox said, waiting to enter the rally early Saturday. “It would be nice to have it.”

Fox, which plans to vote for Trump, has dismissed any suggestion that money can infringe federal election rules.

“It’s about leading in support and leading people who are in support of the Constitution,” Fox said.