Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump, in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Monday night, suggested the “deep state” was to blame for the woes faced by former President Trump, from campaign hacks to technical issues that delayed the start of his interview with Elon Musk on Monday.
“Well, Sean, I think it’s pretty clear at this point. There are a lot of people out there and of course there is a massive effort to keep Donald Trump out of the White House,” the former president’s daughter-in-law said in the interview.
“These people are scared. This is the deep state. This is the Washington, D.C. swamp. In many ways, these people are our enemies and they know that if Donald J. Trump gets back in the White House, it’s all over, the game is over. And they are afraid of that,” she continued.
Trump did not provide direct evidence for her claims that both attacks were linked to the “deep state,” a term commonly used to describe people working within government who Trump and his allies have used in the past as enemies to galvanize their supporters.
Iran appears to be the prime suspect in the Trump campaign hack, according to a Microsoft report citing Iranian-backed groups and phishing emails, though Tehran denies the allegations. The FBI said Monday evening it was investigating.
Trump and Musk’s Monday night interview was delayed by more than 40 minutes after technical issues prevented some from participating, reminiscent of the chaos that erupted at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign launch on the X-16 space platform.
It is unclear what caused the technical glitch during Musk’s interview with President Trump.
Lara Trump responded to Hannity’s suggestion that the same people were behind the campaign hacking and the technical issues with the X interview by blaming the deep state.
“We’re not dealing with amateurs here,” Hannity first told Lara Trump, “They went hard on Elon Musk tonight, and they limited the number of people who could hear your father-in-law earlier tonight.”
Musk blamed the issue on a “massive DDOS (denial of service) attack” targeting the platform.
