My notes on Kamala Harris CNN interview last night:
A+ for staying focused on bread and butter issues voters want to hear about, not on political insider stuff.
Refreshing to hear a stable, mature and intelligent person talk about what matters instead of the infantile incoherent ravings of the other guy.
Live ratings are meaningless. It’s the clips across the next news cycle that matter, and I expect they will be mostly positive, nothing that blows up in her face, as Trump’s always do.
I liked that she wasn’t talking to political junkies. She stayed focused on voters, their housing costs, child care, groceries, etc. (the boring stuff to DC insiders) — shows she is thinking about them, not herself. That’s the contrast with Mr. ME-ME-ME that wins this race.
Swing voters will REALLY like appointing a Republican to her Cabinet. Campaign obviously planned to make this a newsy item that comes out of this interview. That’s how you can drive coverage when your candidate isn’t a pinball machine.
Harris: “It’s important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views, different experiences. And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican.”
That is a smart political move for reminding swing voters how Trump viciously demonizes the other side, rejects bipartisanship.
I also liked her answer on day one priority. Presidents shouldn’t do anything on day 1! They aren’t kings! Happy that Kamala isn’t fabricating some BS executive orders that will immediately go to the courts. Shows me she’s a serious responsible person. But I would have suggested saying, “Well I can tell you that on day one I won’t be trying to be a dictator”
And this was well played …
Q: I want to ask you about what Trump said last month. He suggested that you ‘happened to turn Black,’ questioning a core part of your identity
Vice President Harris: Same old tired playbook. Next question please
Q: That’s it?
Vice President Harris: That’s it
craig, any notes on what Walz said during the interview or was his just a potted plant role?
today’s ‘toon for the coach:
Attribution: Media coverage of Walz by Dave Whamond, Canada, PoliticalCartoons.com
lincoln project twiXted:
@realDonaldTrump: your campaign is failing, crowd sizes shrinking, and your ratings are plummeting. You’re being sabotaged from the inside.
https://x.com/i/status/1829353355627638797
what the WSJ as of yesterday is saying about the race
A new Wall Street Journal poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris is one point ahead of former President Donald Trump. While Trump still leads on key issues like the economy and immigration, Harris had 48% support to his 47% in a head-to-head test, claiming an advantage within the survey’s margin of error. WSJ breaks down the major takeaways from the poll. Chapters: 0:00 WSJ poll 0:40 Harris’s visibility 1:42 Key issues 2:24 Favorability 3:15 What’s next?
“That’s it?”
”That’s it.”
Well played.
Just a reminder of what Kamala said when Dumbass made his stupid remarks at NABJ when she poke at the Sigma Gamma Rho’s 60th International Biennial Boulé in Houston the day of his blathering. “This afternoon,” she said, pausing for boos from the crowd. “Donald Trump spoke at the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists.” “And it was the same old show: the divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say, the American people deserve better. The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth. A leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us – they are an essential source of our strength.” Almost sounds like she was consistent in her response to his idiotic comments. She’s the only one of the 2 candidates capable… Read more »
PatD, I think he was only there to push back attacks on him while she was there to hold the limelight. In other words she was his crutch, not the other way around as the right wing mob was saying.
i’m kind of tired of the pandering to Pennsylvania and their dumb boutique issues like “fracking”
You’re probably not sitting on a lottery ticket, random Pennsylvanian. Vote on more important issues
And lest his chickenshitness gets lost in the shuffle, CNN
Why the DA’s office didn’t object…?
Where do you stand on destabilizing the geology of entire communities to profit the few and would you appoint a vampire?
Pressing issues! Tough questions!
Bink, I agree the fracking issue is overplayed, even for Pennsylvanians. They are not ‘all or nothing’ on this issue, as Trump world makes it sound. They’ve elected two Democratic U.S. senators and a governor with balanced positions to regulate natural gas development while not banning it.
I’ve been keeping a list of the right wing mob’s juvenile attacks on Harris. I didn’t hear anything in the interview that fuel any of their claims, despite so many of the questions (all but 4 by my count) essentially dignifying their attacks in the form of a responsible-sounding question.
Harris Attack Themes
• She’s a D.E.I. hire
• She only recently became Black
• She’s Comrade Kamala: a radical communist
• She laughs like a lunatic
• She’s “kama-kameleon,” whose positions change depending on her surroundings
• Nickname: Kamabla (I believe this is supposed to be pronounced “Kama-blah” — as in, she’s “blah”)
• Nickname: KamalaCrash (she causes markets to crash)
• Her crowds are A.I.-generated
• She’s phony and Canadian
• She’s dumb
I wish Dana would have used the actual language of these attacks instead of repeating them with sanitized words.
That’s it? Yep.
That is the way to control the interview, and the headlines, and the news cycle. Don’t feed the monsters.
Harris/Walz 2024
tRUMP/Project 2025 Never!
Adolf has 11 days until he has to debate or get on a plane and fly away or, I don’t know, are bone spurs an excuse to avoid a debate?
speaking of magaTs and DEI
Attribution: D.E.I. Hire by Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune, UT
Going into Labor Day it’s a horse race in the battlegrounds. Only Wisconsin and Nevada outside the margin of error.
Nice of the Trump campaign to offer a preview of his attack lines for the debate (if he can remember them).
“Kamala said her values ‘have not changed’ three separate times. She’s still a San Francisco radical,” the campaign claimed in a statement, before listing all the issues that Harris “avoided”:
“Kamala’s support for ending cash bail for violent criminals.
“Kamala’s fundraising for the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which freed rioters.
“Kamala’s tiebreaking vote for American Rescue Plan, which economists say fueled inflation.
“Kamala’s support for defunding the police.
“Kamala’s comments comparing policing to slavery.
“Kamala’s repeated praise of Bidenomics.
“Kamala’s support for Medicare-for-All, a socialist takeover of our healthcare system.
“Kamala’s support for closing immigration detention centers and freeing thousands of criminals into American neighborhoods.
“Kamala saying we need to start ‘from scratch’ with ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and comparing ICE officers to the KKK.
“Kamala’s support for reparations.
“Kamala’s support or decriminalizing prostitution.”
Ummmm, shouldn’t those be things avoided be things Dana avoided?
Nailing down the 8-year-old boys vote…
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Posted Aug 29, 2024, 11:49 PM
Dana was not the best choice for interviewer, she is not a graceful questioner, this is not an interrogation. Time for that later, if necessary.
Worst of all was the falsely-premised question about a “better economy” under Donald. People were dying by the thousands, households were losing their breadwinners.
“And every other policy is subtlety and nuance. To the credit of the Harris campaign, they did pick the easiest one. Dana Bash occasionally lives up to the term journalist, probably above the average at CNN. She would be a D plus, but usually not. She is also lifeless enough that you wonder if they have to slip a mirror under her nose periodically to make sure she’s still, you know. Of course, after this, so as of sometime late Thursday night, what will follow next is demands by every other reporter to interview Harris immediately, and the replacement complaint to replace the one in which they say, she hasn’t done any sit-down interviews, which is, it has now been filled in the blank days, since Kamala Harris gave a one-on-one interview. And don’t forget, there are no press conferences yet. And then, there will not have been… Read more »
probably the most honest thing both sides can say —
Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Dan Meuser, a longtime Trump supporter, on Harris’ interview: “Certainly, last night it appears she avoided a train wreck.”
She absolutely got through this unscathed but I question the risk of waiting so long to do an interview, letting the hype and expectation build to a point where any slip-up could have been magnified beyond reasonable proportion. It has been the only campaign decision I’ve disagreed with so far (would have preferred getting it over with before the convention). Now that the pressure is relieved a bit, why not just do them regularly so that each one isn’t a cliffhanger and there’s plenty of time for any necessary clean up in the next one.
Feel sorry for Vance, he inherited the Pence role of chuckling his way through what Trump actually says all day and pivoting to the issue they want him to talk about.
BERMAN: Would you describe Trump’s posts over the past 48 hours as lifting people up? Reposting QAnon statements & misogynistic memes about Hillary Clinton?
JD VANCE: I’d much rather have a candidate who is willing to tell some jokes
BERMAN: Alright.
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1829509601282113969?t=FoeFYe_PNx9CYAPwJHy68A&s=19
More Betman
BERMAN: Last night you posted a clip from Ms Teen US 2007 — Caitlin Upton. When you posted that, were you aware she thought about committing suicide for the attention that received?
JD VANCE: No, certainly not.
B: Would you like to apologize?
V: I’m not going to apologize
My post on the occasion of Brian Lamb’s retirement:
https://x.com/cspan/status/1829525129597964519?t=7WuJ2FliBcuZUOKkYpCQwQ&s=19
New Yorker cartoon
The New Yorker has some of the most well curated cartoons out there.
future first family…. it looks like America to me…
OK, so when confronted with the meme he posted last night -LAST NIGHT , mind you – of Caitlyn Upton from the 2007 Miss Teen USA pageant blowing her response to a softball question about being unable to find the US on a map, JDouche explained it this way: I posted a meme from 20 years ago, and I think that the fact we’re talking about that instead of the fact that American families can’t afford groceries or health care or young families can’t afford to buy a home to raise their families in – those are the real crises that we should focus on. Let’s run with that. If he really thought that the real crises that we should focus on are “that American families can’t afford groceries or health care or young families can’t afford to buy a home to raise their families in”, why did he post a meme… Read more »
The more I think about it I recognize how genius was her handling of the “flip-flop” issue, essentially saying my positions might change but “I have not changed my values”. Distinguishing “positions” and “values” is a clever formula for all politicians (and people too) who need to justify changing their minds, as all do at some time or another.
Lincoln Project asking Garland to investigate if tRUMPsky broke the law (again) with his promise to give a position to RFK Jr. for dropping out and endorsing the orange fascist.
Probably because I’ve read articles about Venezuela and Nicaragua, I’m getting Spanish-language ads for immigration lawyers, the latest specializing in Venezuelans. Weird.
https://newrepublic.com/post/185473/robert-f-kennedy-rfk-jr-plan-trump-swing-state-ballot-north-carolina
“The quixotic ex-candidate is already part of Trump’s presidential transition team, helping to craft policy and select staff members should the Republican presidential nominee win in November. The move has drawn the ire of at least one major GOP donor in Eric Levine, who described Kennedy as “an anti-vax kook who sees conspiracies behind every tree and under every bed.”
CC: “Swing voters will REALLY like appointing a Republican to her Cabinet.”
In politics this is known as the thin edge of the sword. Keep PartyTRUMP the hell out of The White House. Maybe Lankford, nobody the hell else.
CNN interview got nearly 6 million total viewers…1.06 million in 25-54 y.o. key network demo.
That’s about 10 times their ratings in that slot on an average night, and three times what ratings winner Fox gets.
https://x.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1829560864946475019
“Attorney General Garland:
“The Lincoln Project formally requests that your office open an investigation into Donald Trump (“Trump”) to determine if he violated 18 U.S.C. § 599 (“Section 559”)…”
“These are criminal violations subject to fines and imprisonment.”
OK, Office Pool
How long before RFKJr begins to drive them all so bat shit crazy that he gets unceremoniously booted out the swingin’ doors. You just know he’s gonna be all up in everybody’s shit, squirrelly little creep.
“They wouldn’t speak to me, they wouldn’t even meet with me and then they kicked me out the front door. “
I’d say that worm ate up a good sized chunk of brain.
Noel Casler
Listen guys, they call her Dana Bash for a reason. It’s not Dana Insightful, or Dana Informed it’s Dana Bash
Dex, I took her Republican in cabinet maneuver also as a shout out to never trumpers to endorse her now. With his prominent speech at the Democratic National convention I’m guessing Kinzinger has a leg up for VA Secretary.
looks like Gwen’s another happy warrior for the campaign on the trail
Kinzinger is certainly an outlier, so I wouldn’t scream in defiance at his appointment. He doesn’t offend people like, say, Comer or Gaetz. While from 1861 to April 1865 Lincoln had Bates, Seward, and Chase in his Cabinet and that worked for Lincoln, I hope Harris thoroughly vetts any Republican she considers helpful in running the nation.
Trump’s proclamation about IVF had me up off my chair , no way will he insist on what I heard is a $7.8 B cost to start up free IVF treatments to “any American who needs it”. This is another Trump lie. Then he said he is against the Florida ballot issue regarding time…”I believe they need more than 6 weeks.” Somebody got to Trump to say these things as , as Craig says, Trump’s campaign is flailing. But still close.
Will you, in the spirit of bipartisanship, appoint a member of the party that did nothing for the last 4 years but obstruct everything?
…in the spirit of “bipartisanship”??
if you asked a Republican the same question they’d laugh
Will you appoint a member of the party that killed their own border bill out of pettiness?
******* laughable non-journalism
My $2 is also on Kinzinger.
Will you appoint a member of the party that spent two years on an impeachment investigation out of spite that yielded nothing, in the spirit of bipartisanship?
Kintzinger, yes. Liz Cheney, no.
ps – Mitt Romney, UN Ambassador? IDK, throwing him a bone like the dog in the carrier strapped to the roof of his station wagon. Beats a decaying whale head.
Will you appoint a member of the party that is under exclusive control of one treasonous, aspiring autocrat, who actively undermines peace negotiations and hostage release deals while holding no office, in the spirit of bipartisanship?
Will you appoint a member of the party whose state-level officials in gerrymandered legislatures are actively trying to contravene popular referenda, so that the nonpartisan electoral will of the people can be denied, in the spirit of bipartisanship?
Will you appoint a member of the party that refuses to disavow their nominated and official leader who spends most nights hate-tweeting overly racist memes?
In the spirit of bipartisanship! You know, with the party that tried to overthrow the country! 🇺🇸