Why Trump's X chat with Musk failed to flip the script.

With 83 days to go until Americans decide whether to give Donald Trump another four years in the White House, the Republican nominee has been desperate to flip the script after president Joe Biden’s decision to exit the race caused an unprecedented shift in vibes and polls that has seen vicepresident Kamala Harris take the lead in both national and swing-state polling.

- ANDREW FEINBERG

Ms Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, have seized the narrative and upended an election Trump and his allies had considered all but over when he accepted his party’s nomination in Milwaukee last month.

Looking for a miracle, Trump turned to a relatively new ally, X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk, for what both men billed as a game-changing “conversation” on X, the platform the world’s richest man bought with the express aim of using it as a political tool to fight what he calls the “woke mind virus”.