Trump hearts Zelenskyy, Musk hates Breton

What’s driving the day in Brussels.
By EDDY WAX
with ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH
Send tips here | Tweet @NicholasVinocur @swheaton @EddyWax | Listen to Playbook and view in your browser
GOOD TUESDAY MORNING from Slovak capital Bratislava, where last night I looked on as thousands protested outside the culture ministry, some waving EU flags, against recent moves to bring arts and journalism under tighter government control.
But first, Elon Musk interviewed U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on X in the early hours of this morning. It went exactly as you’d expect …
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: A couple of billionaires talked “sexy” cars, “beautiful” women, oceanfront property and nuclear annihilation for two hours on X — it was the Elon and Donald show. Things didn’t get off to a particularly smooth start, with the X livestream going down and Musk blaming a “massive” cyberattack (though the BBC cast doubt on that claim).
Trump on Zelenskyy: “There’s nobody that feels worse about the Ukraine situation than I do,” Trump said. “I know Zelenskyy. He was very honorable to me, because when they went with the Russia hoax and they said I had a phone call with him, he said it was a perfect phone call.”
Trump on Vladimir Putin: “I know Putin very well. I got along with him very well … And he would, we would talk a lot about Ukraine. It was the apple of his eye. But I said, ‘Don’t ever do it. Don’t ever do it.’”
Trump on climate change: “You know, the biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise 1/8 of an inch over the next 400 years … and you’ll have more oceanfront property, right? The biggest threat is not that. The biggest threat is nuclear warming.”
Trumpiest line: Trump said his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris looked “like the most beautiful actress ever to live” and “very much like a great first lady, Melania” on the cover of TIME Magazine.
Muskiest line: Referring to the cars made by his company Tesla, Musk said: “Model S, Model E, Model X and Y — spells out sexy. It’s probably the most expensive joke.”
MUSK VS. BRETON: Ahead of the interview, French European Commissioner Thierry Breton warned Musk about the EU’s rules on promoting hate speech in a letter posted to X. Musk first replied “Bonjour!” and then followed up with a meme from the 2008 film “Tropic Thunder,” where a character played by Tom Cruise says: “Take a big step back and literally, fuck your own face!”
Musk tried to bait Trump into commenting on the spat, bringing up Breton’s letter and saying: “There’s a lot of attempts to do censorship and to force censorship, even on Americans from other countries. What do you think about that?”
But Trump didn’t bite, instead launching into a diatribe about the U.S. trade deficit with the EU, saying “they take great advantage of the United States in trade,” and “they’re not as tough as China, but they’re bad.”
Welcome to Schuman: “In an interconnected world, with content on platforms accessible across the globe, including in the EU (which accounts for one third of X user base), we have a duty to ensure that our laws are respected,” said an aide to Breton.
Further reading: Playbook’s own Zoya Sheftalovich has a rundown of the Trump-Musk chat here.
AND SPEAKING OF TRUMP: The FBI is investigating the alleged hacking of Trump’s campaign, after an apparent breach that resulted in sensitive documents being emailed to POLITICO. Our U.S. colleagues have more.
FICO’S REVENGE TAKES SLOVAKIA TO BOILING POINT: Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico appears to have largely recovered from the shocking assassination attempt in May, when a gunman shot him in the stomach from close range.
Moment of national disunity: But rather than leading to a national catharsis, Fico has responded to that despicable attack by blaming the opposition and going about a continued dismantling of Slovakia’s judicial, police and media institutions with renewed zeal.
How did we get here? Fico — who ruled this small ex-Communist country of 5.4 million people for all but two years between 2006 and 2018 — was forced out of office in the wake of the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his partner Martina Kušnírová. But Fico blazed back into power late last year, sweeping away the anti-corruption government that had followed him and forming an unlikely coalition with a center-left offshoot of his own Smer party, and a far-right party called SNS.
Back with a vengeance: “What is fueling Fico is a sense of revenge on the one hand,” said Anton Spisak, a Slovak academic at the Centre for European Reform in London, “and a desire to control the state apparatus on the other, so as to prevent a situation where his future and that of his associates could be jeopardized again.”
What the opposition says: “He’s become more aggressive in his rhetoric, [more] divisive,” said Michal Šimečka, the leader of the Progressive Slovakia party, when I met him in his nondescript office in a business center at lunchtime on Monday. “Every other video or press release is blaming the opposition and the media in particular for the assassination attempt,” said Šimečka, a former MEP. His colleague, the MP Martin Dubéci, said Slovakia’s “traumatized” society was as divided as Hungary, Poland and the U.S., if not more so. “People are yelling at each other on the street,” he said.
Not so fast: Erik Kaliňák, an MEP for the PM’s Smer party, rejected the accusation that Fico was dividing the country: “The Prime minister had only very limited amount of public exposure since the assassination attempt, so if there is someone dividing the Slovak nation it’s absolutely one hundred percent the opposition and mainstream media who are spreading lies and hate on daily basis, even during the entire summer,” Kaliňák told me over WhatsApp.
Main targets: Fico’s government has demolished the public broadcaster, sacking its director and causing consternation in the European Commission about the independence of the media. “The goal of [the] government coalition with national broadcaster is simple — objective, neutral unbiased news which is neither pro nor anti government,” texted Smer MEP Kaliňák. His rival Šimečka said his country was “nowhere near Hungary,” and that there is still free, independent media — but warned that the broadcast law was part of a “concerted effort to control the media, or intimidate them.” 
A controversial reform of the penal code — an early version of which lowered penalties for corruption — has already raised Brussels’ hackles. There were two developments last week: 1) The government announced plans to disband the National Crime Agency that investigates corruption cases … and 2) Justice Minister Boris Susko used an arcane (though above-board) law to get a former special prosecutor called Dušan Kováčik — who was convicted for taking bribes — out of jail while he awaits a Supreme Court appeal. Kaliňák said Fico, along with the government, “believes the former special prosecutor is innocent,” suggesting Kováčik was stitched up in a political plot.
Grim prediction: John Kampfner, a British writer, has warned in the Guardian that Slovakia is going full throttle toward authoritarianism. 
CULTURE WAR BREWS: But it’s Culture Minister Martina Šimkovičová, allied to Fico’s coalition partner SNS, who is getting most of the attention, with thousands calling for her resignation at the protest last night.
The reason? Last week, Šimkovičová summarily dismissed National Theater Director Matej Drlička from his role. National Gallery Director Alexandra Kusá — who’d spoken up in Drlička’s defense — was promptly fired too, and word around Bratislava is that others might follow. One young teacher at the protest told me the atmosphere made her think of Communist times.
Connected to the past: “I know I didn’t do [anything] wrong,” Kusá told me at the gallery, where her staff were dressed in black in solidarity with her plight. Kusá is an art historian who oversaw a lengthy €80 million renovation of the museum, and who specializes in the art of propaganda in Czechoslovakia under Stalinism. “The people from the ministry are connected to the past,” she said, describing ministers as “internet performers.” Emails that my colleague Csongor Körömi sent to the culture ministry did not get a response.
What’s next: Progressive Slovakia, which is organizing big protests in the capital today, has called a special parliamentary session for next week seeking no-confidence votes in Culture Minister Šimkovičová and Justice Minister Susko. The votes will most likely fail.
**As we face unprecedented challenges, the GLOBSEC Forum 2024 in Prague, taking place at the end of the summer, is the leading platform for discussing the future of Europe. Join us as we tame the storm and navigate the challenges shaping Europe’s future. More here.**
UKRAINE TALKS UP INCURSION: Ukraine’s military broke its silence on the progress of its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, saying its forces now control about 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory. Ukraine’s top commander General Oleksandr Syrskyi made the statement in a video briefing posted to Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Telegram channel, but gave no further detail beyond saying the operation was continuing.
And Russia’s take? Hours earlier, Alexei Smirnov, Russia’s acting regional governor of Kursk, estimated that Kyiv’s forces had taken control of 28 settlements in an incursion that was about 12 kilometers deep and 40 kilometers wide, according to a Reuters report. While that’s less territory than Ukraine says it controls, it’s still a stunning admission from the Russian side.
RUSSIA GAMES NATO TARGETS: Meanwhile, Russia’s navy has been trained to send nuclear-capable missiles at European targets as far away as France’s west coast and Barrow-in-Furness in the U.K., according to secret files seen by the Financial Times.
Pre-Ukraine training: Maps of the targets for a potential conflict with NATO are detailed in a presentation for officers that predates the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and shows Russia gaming a conflict that could reach much further than its immediate NATO frontier.
THE EU ON HOLIDAY: This month we’ll be hearing from top EU political figures about how they’re spending their break. Today it’s the turn of Roberta Metsola, the European Parliament president and Maltese European People’s Party MEP.
Where she’s spending it: Metsola said through her spokesperson that she is taking “no formal holiday this year, but I will be spending time in my Malta & Gozo constituency, with my family. Hopefully I’ll also manage an escape or two for a few days, including to gorgeous Gozo if and when possible.”
What she’s listening to: Pod Save America; Pod Save the World; The Rest is Politics with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart; the Jon Mallia Podcast.
What she’s been watching: The Olympics. “I would recommend them for anyone who believes in the power of human endurance, healthy competition and the sheer brilliance of the athletes,” she said.
What she’s reading (or listening to as audiobooks): “Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad” by Daniel Finkelstein; “Believer” by David Axelrod; “A Death in Malta” by Paul Caruana Galizia (which Playbook has also read and can highly recommend).
GREECE ON FIRE: A massive wildfire fueled by gale-force winds was burning out of control on the outskirts of Athens last night, forcing thousands to leave their homes, Nektaria Stamouli reports. Hundreds of firefighters and dozens of aircrafts were battling blazes that in some places were 80 feet tall. Greece has requested help from the EU’s coordinated disaster response system known as the civil protection mechanism.
Feeling the heat: Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis canceled his holiday on the island of Crete and flew home. The country will remain on alert at least until Thursday, because of high temperatures, lack of rainfall and strong winds.
Now read: Europe’s southerners want Brussels to save them from climate change.
GERMAN LIBERALS WANT TO AX DEVELOPMENT MINISTRY: As a dispute about a multi-billion hole in Germany’s budget lingers on, the liberal FDP — the smallest party in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition — has come up with a provocative proposal: To slash the development ministry and integrate it into the foreign ministry, reports my Berlin Playbook colleague Jürgen Klöckner. “The gain in effectiveness and efficiency would be enormous,” says an FDP paper.
PRESSURE ON BULGARIAN PRESIDENT OVER LGBT LAW: The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O’Flaherty called on Bulgarian President Rumen Radev not to sign a law banning LGBTQ+ “propaganda” in schools into law. “Authorities should tackle discrimination and hostile rhetoric against LGBTI people incl. in the run-up to elections,” O’Flaherty wrote on X. The European Commission has refused to comment, using the excuse it is pending legislation.
CUTTING-EDGE STUFF: EU anti-fraud office OLAF has confiscated some 900,000 fake razor blades, which were indistinguishable from those of a “very well-known brand,” in a joint operation with Spanish and Italian authorities, it said Monday. The blades were entering the EU from China and posed a safety risk to consumers, the agency said.
WEATHER: Sunny, high of 30C, chance of rain.
IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING … here’s why your coffee got so expensive of late.
CONDOLENCES: Tributes are flowing in for the late Catholic Archbishop Noël Treanor, who held the role of Apostolic Nuncio to the European Union (a role to which he was appointed by Pope Francis). The Nuncio died aged 73. EPP leader Manfred Weber offered his condolences.
BIRTHDAYS: MEP Dirk Gotink; former MEPs Andrey Slabakov, Gérard Deprez and José Manuel García-Margallo; former French PM Manuel Valls; Managing Director of the IMF Kristalina Georgieva; POLITICO’s Aurélie Burnier; BABEDA’s Liora Kern.
THANKS TO: Nektaria Stamouli, Nicholas Vinocur, Csongor Körömi, Hans von der Burchard, Mark Scott, Pieter Haeck and Playbook producer Dean Southwell.
SUBSCRIBE to the POLITICO newsletter family: Brussels Playbook | London Playbook | London Playbook PM | Playbook Paris | EU Election Playbook | Berlin Playbook | Global Playbook | POLITICO Confidential | Sunday Crunch | EU Influence | London Influence | Digital Bridge | China Watcher | Berlin Bulletin | D.C. Playbook | D.C. Influence | All our POLITICO Pro policy morning newsletters