Elon and Trump 'X' Interview and the Electronic 'Lisping' Issue

The Elon Musk discussion with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump almost didn't happen, as Kruiser and Catherine report. A DDOS attack on the X "Spaces" delayed the discussion for the better part of an hour. Curiously, the attack occurred mere hours after the European Union demanded Musk shut down the interview because "there is a risk of amplification of potentially harmful content in connection with events with major audiences around the world." And then there was that incessant "lisp" that grew worse over the interview. What was that, anyway?

Donald Trump and Elon Musk have now been speaking live, unfiltered for almost TWO HOURS on X. pic.twitter.com/k27KGbD1Z1
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 13, 2024

Indeed, Trump's speech had a lisping sibilance and I, like millions of people, wondered if he'd just had dental work or something. No one could imagine how Trump, acutely concerned with optics, would allow himself to be interviewed if he'd just been shot up with anesthesia. It turns out that his voice was just fine, as you can see in the real-time video/audio below, but processing and compression created a bizarre lisping sound when he used the "s" and "sh" sounds.

Here he is in real-time discussion with Elon Musk.

Unlike USA Today, The Guardian, and other publications that ran with the Trump is lisping story, I asked what was up. The answer is called "slushing" and has to do with "audio compression issues."

As a radio talker and podcaster for years, I can tell you that using a speaker phone without headphones doesn't help.

USA Today offered a shocking assessment of the problem. See if you can spot who this guy is voting for:

For a fascism-curious billionaire who loves cuddling up to right-wing loons, Elon Musk sure is good at making right-wing politicians look stupid.
[...] He was rambling, babbling on about crowd sizes and immigration and President Joe Biden and whatever else seemed to pass through his mind. He was also badly slurring his words, raising questions about his health, and doing nothing to knock down rising concerns about his age and well-being.
He sounded like a disoriented, racist Daffy Duck.

Oddly, the "humor" columnist never offered the readily available explanation for why the teetotaler Trump was "slurring" his words. There's no fun in that.

There was humor in the conversation if the "humor" columnist had chosen to listen to the words. Trump's electronic tête-à-tête with Musk produced some pretty good one-liners. Musk asked about Trump's now memory-holed assassination attempt. He explained how he looked at the immigration chart at his speech in Butler, Penn., and how that turn of the head saved his life. Trump joked, "Illegal immigration saved my life." Trump told Musk that he was "going to sleep with that chart for the rest of my life."