After Musk helped tank a bipartisan bill to fund the government, Trump told conservative activists that he hadn’t “ceded the presidency” to the tech billionaire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PHOENIX \u2014 President-elect Donald Trump dismissed any suggestion that he\u2019s being usurped by his high-profile billionaire ally Elon Musk, coming off a week in which Musk helped derail an emergency spending measure<\/a> to avert a government shutdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump said the notion that he has \u201cceded the presidency\u201d to Musk is a fiction and that even if Musk wanted the job, he couldn\u2019t get it because of the Constitution\u2019s requirement that the U.S. president be a natural-born citizen. Musk was born in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo, he\u2019s not going to be president, that I can tell you,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m safe. You know why he can\u2019t be? He wasn\u2019t born in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump spoke for more than an hour Sunday at Turning Point USA\u2019s AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, with thousands of conservative activists cheering wildly as he took the stage amid a pyrotechnic display. It was his first rally-style event since the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smoke curled around the lectern and sparklers shot up from the floor as the crowd stood and cheered the incoming president, who wore his trademark suit and overlong red tie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTrump! Trump! Trump!\u201d the audience chanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe golden age of America is upon us,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his remarks, Trump also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to meet with him \u201cas soon as possible\u201d and called for an end to the \u201chorrible,\u201d horrible\u201d war between Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the campaign, Trump said he would bring a swift end to the war, using leverage and clout he believes he has attained with both Putin and Ukraine\u2019s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Raising a different foreign policy issue, he reiterated a warning that he made on social media<\/a> Saturday that Panama is charging excessive fees for use of the Panama Canal, the passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Panama doesn\u2019t relent, Trump said he would insist on retaking control of the canal, which the U.S. relinquished under a treaty<\/a> that then-President Jimmy Carter signed in 1977.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we\u2019re being ripped off everywhere else,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The president of Panama, Jos\u00e9 Ra\u00fal Mulino, posted on social media<\/a> Sunday that the canal belongs to Panama and the sovereignty of the country is not up for negotiation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Every square meter of the Panama Canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama, and will continue to,” he said in his video message. “The sovereignty and independence of our country are non-negotiable. … It’s part of our history of struggle and an irreversible victory.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump also outlined a new plan for a campaign-style advertising blitz aimed at discouraging drug use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are going to advertise how bad drugs are for you,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThey ruin your look, they ruin your face, they ruin your skin. They ruin your teeth. If you want to have horrible teeth, take a lot of fentanyl.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s appearance at the conference followed a tense standoff in Washington, D.C., over the past week that nearly caused a government shutdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump and Musk effectively scuttled Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson\u2019s proposed emergency spending measure, forcing lawmakers to find an acceptable alternative that would keep the government running hours before the shutdown would have taken effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Musk, who owns the social media site X, posted more than 100 times about his objections to the original spending deal<\/a> \u2014 a preview of how he may use his influence and his megaphone to shape policy in Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mockingly, Democrats have taken to calling him \u201cPresident Musk.\u201d History shows that anyone who upstages Trump or diverts attention from him doesn\u2019t last long in his orbit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet Trump\u2019s remarks suggest that he doesn\u2019t want a rift with Musk; for now, the two have shared interests. Musk spent more than $250 million<\/a> to help get Trump elected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n