Elon Musk sat down this week with The Economist's editor-in-chief, who opened with an accusation: that Musk has aligned himself with Europe's far right. Musk answered by turning the interview into a lesson, using three of the most famous Democrats in modern history as his exhibits. Zanny Minton Beddoes had a theory about who counts as extreme. Musk had a set of old transcripts ready to test it. Would she recognize the words when she heard them?
Minton Beddoes went further than accusing Musk of merely backing Europe's populist right. She said he supports the far right, naming fringe parties in several countries most people couldn't identify.
Musk didn't take the bait. He said that he supports normal people, and that slapping the label "far right" on their views is simply false. When Beddoes pushed back and asked whether he really believed those parties represent ordinary voters, Musk pointed out that the policies that the media portrays as “far right” today were mainstream just a few years ago. He then referenced an amusing trick he finds most revealing about how the media manufacture outrage.
"Yes, literally, you could go back 10 or 15 years and these policies were completely normal," Musk said. "One of the tricks that I think is funny is to take a speech from Obama and Hillary, and then go to someone who's sort of on the sort of what I call the lunatic left, and say, ‘What do you think of the speech by Trump?’ They're like, 'Oh wow, he's the worst person ever.' ‘Actually, that was a speech by Obama’, or ‘Actually, that was a speech by Hillary.’ Literally."
Related: You Need to Watch What Elon Musk Just Did to The Economist's Editor-in-Chief
He's right, and the receipts go back decades. In his 1995 State of the Union address, Bill Clinton told the nation, "All Americans, not only in the States most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country."
He continued, “The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public services they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our Administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace.”
He concluded his point by saying, “We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.”
How radicalized has the Democrat party become on border security and illegal immigration?
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) September 8, 2024
Watch this clip from Bill Clinton’s 1995 SOTU. Might as well be a Trump speech. pic.twitter.com/dCB9lXYbRg
Hillary made a similar case in May 2008, when she was still running for president the first time. "So, I think we got to have tough conditions," she said. "Tell people to come out of the shadows. If they've committed a crime, deport them. No questions asked, they're gone." She added that anyone here illegally who wanted to stay would have to pay "a stiff fine," pay back taxes, and "wait in line."
Hillary Clinton on illegal immigrants back in 2008..
— American AF 🇺🇸 (@iAnonPatriot) November 30, 2024
What changed!? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/AgCDh84Ie7
Obama made the same argument in November 2014, dressing it up as compassion. "Mass amnesty would be unfair," he said. "Mass deportation would be both impossible and contrary to our character." Then Obama promised accountability. "If you're a criminal, you'll be deported," he said. "If you plan to enter the U.S. illegally, your chances of getting caught and sent back just went up."
"If you're a criminal, you'll be deported." Barack Obama, November 20, 2014
— Revival Nation News (@EncounterNewsX) January 28, 2025
Why didn't leftists freak out when Obama deported illegal aliens? pic.twitter.com/ZKP2hjt2Wz
Strip the names from those three quotes, and they sound an awful lot like what President Donald Trump is saying today. Strong borders isn’t a far-right position; it’s a mainstream, common-sense position.
And there are so many more examples.
Back when democrats at least use to PRETEND to be anti-illegal immigration and pro-America. pic.twitter.com/FIm7zyThZZ
— Bridgett Fertig (@LightOnLiberty) January 18, 2026
That's Musk's actual point, and it's a good one. In the end, it all points to the indisputable fact that Democrats have gone off the rails, not the right.
