The Excuses For Trump's Bizarre Lisp During Elon Musk Interview Just Don't Add Up

On August 12, 2024, Donald Trump sat down for a live-streamed discussion on X, formerly known as Twitter. As Trump spoke with Elon Musk, listeners became aware of one strange detail: the former president's words lacked clarity. According to The Daily Beast, Trump's campaign initially deflected the inquiries about a lisp by blaming the hearing capabilities of the viewers. However, since tens of thousands of people commented about Trump's unusual speech, it seems doubtful that the issue was due to listeners' perceptions.

By the following day, Trump shifted to blaming technology. "Unfortunately, because of the complexity of modern day equipment, and cellphone technology, my voice was, in certain areas, somewhat different and strange," Trump explained on Truth Social. As supporting evidence, he touted that a better-quality version of the interview was now available.

While listeners observed Trump's apparent lisp was no longer present in this update, many weren't convinced by his assertion that technology was at fault. If this were the case, an X user argued that Musk's voice would also have been impacted. "Nothing to do with compression, either data or audio signal," declared another poster on X, citing decades of recording knowledge. In addition, this individual noted, "The lisp is not on every word Trump says." In fairness, technical problems did cause the interview to begin 40 minutes late. "We unfortunately had a massive distributed denial of service attack against our servers," Musk explained on X. However, while the platform has had livestream issues in the past, some were skeptical of Musk's statement since the rest of the site was functioning normally.

Beyond conversations about technical issues, a large contingent of viewers who watched Donald Trump's interview with Elon Musk thought dental problems were to blame. "What's going on with his voice? He sounds like a sugared-up kid on Halloween who won't take out his plastic vampire teeth," Seth Meyers joked on his show. Exaggerations aside, viewers postulated that not only did Trump have false teeth, difficulties with them were exacerbated by the fact that Trump was leaning over his phone for the interview. 

Others, however, dismissed this idea as completely illogical. "I am 100 percent sure Trump doesn't have dentures," cosmetic dentist Dr. Mervyn Druian informed The Daily Mail. "He's had very sophisticated cosmetic dentistry — including veneers. That's why, at his age, his teeth look so perfect and white."

Another contingent of individuals attributed Trump's seemingly slurred speech to a more general health issue. Since Joe Biden backed out of the presidential race, Trump's age and health have been receiving increased scrutiny. While some claimed that his posture was to blame for the slurring, others weren't convinced by this excuse. Multiple users on X inquired as to whether a stroke was responsible for Trump's lisp. Prior to the Musk interview, observers of the former president have noted changes like mixing up words that could indicate a decline in Trump's health.