Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode One Hundred Ninety Seven: I'm Not Donald Trump

Transcript

Episode One Hundred Ninety Seven: I'm Not Donald Trump · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number one hundred and ninety seven of
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I'm your host on today's show. Kamala Harris is suddenly
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: everywhere in the news media and lots of journalism issues ensue.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: CBS creates maybe the dumbest interview controversy in media history,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and Hurricane Milton causes the media to become as unhinged
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: on climate change as a loose shutter in Central Florida
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: right now, in just days, we have gone from Kamala
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Harris metaphorically doing a basement type campaign wearing a burka
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: to her walking around town in a bikini or at
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: least a one piece bathing suit with lots more exposure.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that metaphor works or not, but
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: it is rather dramatic how different the Harris strategy is
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: with regard to media exposure this week as it has
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: been compared to this very shortened campaign prior to this week.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: All of a sudden, she's doing lots of interviews and
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: very different types of interviews, diverse as far as the
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: nature of the interview, everything from sixty minutes to the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Call Her Daddy podcast and Obviously, the subject matter has
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: been extremely diverse, and a lot of it seems to
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: be focused on personalizing her. And I do think that
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: if there's a strategy here and not a panic see,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: that's I think that's the key question. We talked a
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: little bit about this in the last episode. Is this
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: a panic move or is this part of a strategy.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I don't think this is a panic move. I know
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: most Trump fans do think that this dramatic as shift
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: is an indication that the Harris campaign is panicking. I don't.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I see this as a strategy that they don't think
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: they can win on policy, so they're going to win
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: on personality. They are going to maintain or maybe even
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: increase Kamala Harris's personal favorability ratings, her likability, which they
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: know is way ahead of Donald Trump right now, way ahead,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And they're betting that most people, especially undecided voters, don't
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: really vote on policy. They vote on a feeling, on
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: a personality, and if they can maintain or even enhance
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Harris's advantage when it comes to her personal favorability, her popularity,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: her likability, then they think they can win. And by
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the way, I'm not sure that's a bad bet, because
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's lost a whole lot of money
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: betting that the American voter isn't that bright, isn't that substantive,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: isn't going to be voting on hardcore policy or substantive
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: issues or logic or reason or anything like that. And
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I think this is one of the reasons why Trump
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: fans are potentially grossly miscalculating what has gone down, specifically
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: with regard to the strategy for why all of a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: sudden Harris is allowing herself to be exposed in all
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: of these different types of interviews. Now that being said,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: by and large, these interviews have not gone really well
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: for Harris, and I totally get why it is that
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: someone that is following this campaign on a regular basis,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: that knows the issues and who comes at this from
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: a conservative perspective, can sit back and go, my gosh,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: how could anybody possibly vote for this person? She's so vacuous,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: She doesn't answer any of the questions. She puts herself
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: in difficult spots, and any difficult question she never comes
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: close to trying to answer. If I can see this
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: so clearly, why can't everybody else see it? So clearly.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: But I don't think getting back to who the target
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: audience here is, I don't think that this has gone
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: nearly as poorly for Harris as a lot of Trump
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: fans and members of the conservative media think that it has.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to explain why as we detail a
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: lot of what has gone on in these media interviews
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: that Kamala Harris has done over the last several days.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I want to begin with a sixty minutes interview, and
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: this was done by Bill Whittaker. Now, Bill Whittaker is
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: a seventy three year old black man, and he, frankly
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: was the perfect person to do this interview, and I
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: thought he did a magnificent job, especially in comparison to
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: whatever everyone else has done in their interviews with Kamala Harris.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: This is an old school journalist. I have no idea
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: what his politics are. I presume that he's at least
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: parsially liberal, because otherwise he wouldn't be where he is.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I've never gotten any sense that Bill Whittaker is a conservative,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: but he at least has the institutional memory of what
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: journalism is supposed to be, what his role is supposed
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: to be, and he has the ability and the willingness
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: to ask decent questions and then even follow up when
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: he doesn't get an answer, and he deserves a lot
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: of credit for that. Now, it's a sad state of
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: affairs that this is something that is worthy of great
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: praise on the Death of Journalism podcast. But we're living
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: in a world now where the standards are very very
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: low in almost every area of political life and specifically
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: in the media. And Whittaker did a far far better
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: job than body else has done and probably will do.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: In fact, I'm very confident that this will be the
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: best interview that Kambala Harris does from a journalistic standpoint
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: before this election is over. Now that's a sad statement,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: but I think it's the truth, and Whittaker deserves credit. Now,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get to what CBS did with the
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: editing after that interview was over, and I don't think
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: that Whittaker had anything to do with that based upon
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: my knowledge of the industry, and is it possible, Yeah,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: but that wouldn't make any sense based upon the way
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: things actually work and how that all went down, because
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: that is absolutely scandalous, and I will get to it
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: in short order, But I first want to deal with
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the interview itself. And while it wasn't perfect, and there
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: were things that I wish Whittaker would have asked and
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: follow ups or issues where I wish he would have
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: pressed Harris more, or maybe questions that I would have asked.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get to my list of questions that
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: have still not been asked of Harris and probably never
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: will be before this election, which is really a damning
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: indictment of the state of journalism. But Whittaker was dealing
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: with a fairly short amount of time, and so I'm
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: going to grade on a curve for that. And so
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: by and large, I thought Whittaker did about as well
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: as he could and from an effectiveness perspective, I think
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and this is why I say he might have been
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the perfect person for this job. Here. He is a
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: seventy three year old black man with a very docile demeanor.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: He's not aggressive, but he's not a you know, someone
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: that can be a pushover either, and I think his
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: demeanor was very very effective. You know, I'm obviously much
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: more of an aggressive type of person, and if I
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: get in a situation where I can ask questions, I'm
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: very aggressive, and that sometimes works, but oftentimes that's not
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the best way of doing things. But when it came
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: to Harris, given who she is and all the issues
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: surrounding her, I think that this was potentially the most
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: effective method to use to expose who she really is,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: to not actually be aggressive, but to be almost soft
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: and almost kind and frankly, almost like a teacher. At times.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I felt like Whittaker was a teacher who was gently
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: chiding a student, and so I thought that really played
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: very much to the advantage of somebody who doesn't want
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Harris to win, or you know, maybe even the Trump campaign,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: which is ironic because the entire sixty Minutes program led
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: off with, oh, by the way, we invited Trump, we
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: think he agreed, and then he backed out, And I
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: didn't think sixty Minutes did a very fair job of
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: explaining Trump's position on that. I thought Trump should have
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: done the interview. He didn't because of what he perceives
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: as the way he was treated over the Hunter Biden
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: laptop by Leslie Stall in twenty twenty, and Trump was
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: right about that by and large. Although Trump fans are
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: lying about what Leslie Stall actually said in that interview,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not defending Stall, but she didn't say the things
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: that Trump and Trump's fans are claiming that she did.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: But I think Trump should have gone on and made
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: his case and said, look, you know, I'm here. This
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: has been a longstanding tradition, but I really shouldn't be
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: because the last time I was here, you guys screwed
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: up this Hunter Biden laptop story, and I was right.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: I don't understand why he wouldn't want to make that case.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: But by and large, I thought that the sixty minutes interview,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: rather ironically, because of the fact that Trump didn't even
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: do a sixty minutes interview, was potentially underlying, potentially the
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: most damaging to have Harris. And it wasn't really because
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: her answers were that terrible. Some of them were not good.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: It was because of the information in Whittaker's questions, information
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: that a lot of swing voters, on decided voters, people
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: who consume traditional legacy media might not even be fully
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: aware of, or certainly haven't taken very seriously because the
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: media has ignored them, and Harris hasn't really been pressed
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: on any of these topics. The first issue that I
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: want to highlight is one of my pet peeves, as
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: you know about this entire truncated, unprecedented presidential general election
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: after the Biden coup and the Harris switched AIU, and
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: that is that Bill Whittaker directly confronted Harris on the
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: issue of having been handed the nomination, handed the nomination,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: which she obviously was, and we've all just been pretending
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that this is not massive hypocrisy when it comes to
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: the issue of democracy. I mean, it would be one
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: thing to do this, and you know, under normal circumstances,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: it would just be a sneaky move. It would be
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: dirty pool. It would be an enormous advantage for Harris
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: to not have to go through a democratic primary process.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: It would be unfair to the Trump campaign, especially after
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: they've already had their convention and picked their vice presidential nominee,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: to all of a sudden be facing a completely different
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: ticket than what they had every reason to expect. But
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: when your entire campaign is based upon the notion of
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: we are here to save democracy, it's particularly absurd and
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: obviously hypocritical. And it's been driving me crazy that this
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: has not really been a major issue in the new media,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and certainly not in any of the Harris interviews. Well, Whittaker,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: much to his credit, took this on directly. And you know,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what Harris's answer should have been, and
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I do wish there had been a follow up to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: her rather as typical of her non answer answer. But
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: here's what it sounded like on the sixty minutes special
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: on CBS when Bill Whittaker went where basically no one
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: else is willing to go, and that is Hey about
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: this whole being handed the denomination thing? Is this really
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: a good thing for democracy?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Was democracy best served by President Biden stepping down and
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: basically handing you a nomination. You didn't have to go
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: through a primary process, you didn't have to fight off
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: other contenders. That's not really the way our system was
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: intended to work.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: President Biden made a decision that I think history is
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: going to show is rare among leaders, which was to
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: put country before self. And I am proud to have
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: earned the support of the vast majority of delegates and
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: to have been elected the Democratic nominee. I am proud
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: to have received the endorsement of leaders around this country
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: from every background and walk of life to fight in
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: this election. Over the next month for our democracy.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: But I think this truncated process is why people think
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: or say they don't really know who you are.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: Look, I've been in this race for seventy days now.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Just to be clear, I thought it was fantastic that
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Bill Whitaker even went there asked the question. I think
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: that this was a really good example of where the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: question and may have had more theoretical impact on a
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: swing voter or an undecided voter that was watching this
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: than the answer did. I mean, it was a typical
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Harris's answer. She didn't really answer it. You know, she
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: tries to claim that that Joe Biden deserves all sorts
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: of praise for making this selfless decision, where we know
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: now that that's not what really happened. We know that
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi ordered the code read. She's basically admitted this,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: if not bragged about it. Biden has essentially acknowledged this,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: and so that should have been one area of follow
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: up by Whittaker. Hey wait a minute, hold on, was
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: this really a selfless decision or was Joe Biden forced out?
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: And by the way, what can you tell us about
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: how and why he was forced out? At the very least,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Harris should be in a position where she has to
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: pick elane. I've been talking about that concert and Lee
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: pick a lane. Was he going to lose? Because you know,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: he went on the view Biden did and said he
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: was going to win, and the ladies of the view, well,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: all went along with that. I guess to make his
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: ego feel better. I guess that was part of his
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: severance package. But you know, give us your assessment as
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: to why this happened? Can we at least find that out?
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, and this should have been
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: part of the follow ups. Were you part of the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: cover up of Biden's house? This is amazing that this
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: has never been asked. But you know this was not
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: a new information to you, was it what happened at
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: that debate with Donald Trump? So why did you go
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: along with this? If Biden was not physically capable of
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: serving another four years in office, why did you go
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: along with that? And it certainly seems as if there
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: was a coup you benefited from that coup. What was
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: your level of knowledge of that coup or participation in
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: that coup? Now you know, I was not expecting Whittaker
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: to go there, but in a rational logical world where
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: we had real journalism, those would be very very reasonable
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: questions related to this subject. And so I again I'm
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: grading on a curve. But Witiker at least brought up
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: the subject which nobody else has been willing to do.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: He also brought up the issue of Kamala Harris's flip
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: flops on various issues, and he did so in a
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: very understated, but I thought firm and effective fashion. Although
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of bundling these issues, this
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: is a very difficult spot for interviewers, right, I mean,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: to me, the best way to do this is you
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: bring up the issue in general. Maybe you list a
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: seer of these flip flops, just so it's clear that
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: you're not cherry picking, but then you pick one to
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: be very specific about. Or maybe you asked the question
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: in a bundle at first. Then when you get the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Harris non answer, you say, okay, well, let me ask
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: you about one of these flip flops in particular. Let's
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: talk about fracking and why it is that you lied
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: about what your position was in twenty twenty when you
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: claimed at the presidential debate with Trump that you had
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: said in a vice presidential debate in twenty twenty that
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: you would not ban fracking. That's not what you said.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: You said, Joe Biden wouldn't ban fracking. Your position on
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: fracking dramatically changed from the twenty twenty presidential election, when
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: you were running in the primaries and now, and it
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: certainly appears that that's because you need to win Pennsylvania.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: That would be a much better way of doing this.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: But once again grading on the curve. At least, Whittaker
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: raises the issue, and Harris's answer is basically, well, I've
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: learned a lot in the last four years, and here's
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: what that sounded like on sixty minutes.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you what your critics and the columnists say.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, they say that.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: The reason so many voters don't know you is that
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: you have changed your position on so many things. You
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: are against fracking, now you're for it. You supported looser
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: immigration policies, now you're tightening them up. You're for medicare
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: for all. Now you're not so many that people don't
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: truly know what you believe or what you stand for.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: And I know you've heard that.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: In the last four years. I have been Vice president
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: of the United States, and I have been traveling our country,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: and I have been listening to folks and what is
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: thing as long as you don't compromise.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Your values.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: To find common sense solutions, and that has been my approach.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Now, this is where my idea of a follow up
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: with regard to fracking would have been potentially devastating to Harris,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: because I've already referenced. Harris's first explanation at the debate
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: with Trump about her fracking flip flop was that she
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: didn't really flip flop, that it was her position in
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty. So that's not consistent with what she just
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: said there. What she'd just said there was that somehow,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: as vice president, traveling across the country, understanding we need compromise.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: That's why I have evolved on my position, even though
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: my principles haven't changed. Okay, that's a bullshitty answer, But
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: that's completely contradict by what she said at the debate
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: with Trump, when she lied and tried to claim that
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: she had never really flip flop, that she had set
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: it back in twenty twenty during the vice presidential debate.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: But again, the evidence is clear, there's video, it's unambiguous.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: She said Joe Biden would not ban fracking, not her,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: because you know, just a few months prior to that,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: she had been very clearly on record saying she was
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: in favor of banning fracking. So well, I don't happen
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: to think fracking is that large an issue for you know,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: from a symbolic standpoint, it is because it goes to
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the whole issue of climate change, global warming and how
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: far you're willing to go and energy independence. And yes,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: it is an issue in Pennsylvania, although it's probably an
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: overrated issue in Pennsylvania. I do think that because of
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: the timeline of events, it's one where she's probably most vulnerable.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: But bundling these issues, these flip flops, I think makes
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: it easier, and it was easier for Harris to go
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: to this idea. Well, I now understand compromise because I've
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: been vice president for three and a half years, so
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: that she can get out of us. This was a
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: classic example of a question and an answer where Trump
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: fans and Republicans were celebrating that this was a disaster
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: for Harris, and I'm not sure that it really was.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I think it was she dodged a bullet there, so
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I think it's you know, it was a good thing
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: that Whittaker asked it, but this did not create anywhere
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: near the damage that it could have based upon the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: factual record. Then there's the issue of illegal immigration, and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: here Whittaker really tried his best to not let Harris
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: off the hook. And and maybe this was his best
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: example of interviewing, where yes, he let her do this
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: whole business about its Trump's fault because we didn't pass
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: a bill. But at least Whittaker made the point that, well,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: you made a mistake to let on let in all
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: these illegal immigrants. Could you have done what you did sooner?
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: And Harris does not give an answer. Harris does not
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: answer this fairly relentless questioning by Whittaker on what happened
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: with regard to the Biden Harris policy on the border
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and how things got so out of control? And here's
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: what that sounded like.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: You recently visited the southern border and embraced President Biden's
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: recent crackdown on asylum seekers, and that crackdown produced an
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: almost immediate and dramatic decrease in the number of border
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: cross If that's the right answer, Now, why didn't your
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: administration take those steps. In twenty twenty one.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: The first bill we proposed to Congress was to fix
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: our broken immigration system, knowing that if you want to
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: actually fix it, we need Congress to act, it was
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: not taken up. Fast forward to a moment when a
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: bipartisan group of members of the United States Senate, including
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: one of the most conservative members of the United States Senate,
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: got together came up with a border security bill. Well,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: guess what happened. Donald Trump got word that this bill
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: was afoot and could be passed, and he wants to
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. So
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: he told his buddies in Congress, kill the bill, don't
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: let it move forward.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: But I've been covering the border for years, and so
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: I know this is not a problem that started with
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: your administration. Correct, But there was an historic flood of
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: undocumented immigrants coming across the border the first three years
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: of your administration. As a matter of fact, arrivals quadrupled
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: from the last year of President Trump. Was it a
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: It's a long standing problem and solutions are at hand,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: and from day one, literally we have been offering solutions.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: What I was asking was, was it a mistake to
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: kind of allow that flood to happen in the first place.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Think the policies that we have been proposing are about
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: fixing a problem, not promoting a problem.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, but the numbers did quadruple, and.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: The numbers today because of what we have done, we
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: have cut the flow of illegal immigration by half, which
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: would we have done defentl by half. But we need
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: Congress to be able to act to actually fix the problem.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Now everyone believes, because every poll indicates it, that illegal
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: immigration is one of the most important policy issues in
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: this campaign. And I don't think that that answer solved
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: anywhere even close to solving Harris's problem on this topic.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: I want to address though, this idea that, well, things
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: have gotten so much better. You know in recent months
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: that the stats are showing that once we finally decided
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: to crack down on the border, boy, oh boy, look
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: how much things have improved. Well, first of all, there's
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: there's some logistical reasons for that. When you when you
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: do that during the summer and the hottest period of time,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: guess what's going to happen to border crossings? They're gonna
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: go down because that's the worst time to cross the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: border in most of the southern border. So that's part
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: of what it is. It's partially seasonal, but it's also
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: partially because when millions and millions of people have already
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: come across the border in the most recent couple of years,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: guess what. Eventually you run out of supply or there's
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: fewer people that are super eager to take the chance
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to come into this country illegally. It's just a matter
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: of math. It's a little bit like saying, well, you know,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: western North Carolina has experienced a dramatic drop of the
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: amount of rainfall recently. Well, no shit, Sherlock, because they
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: just had an unprecedented storm and flood. So the fact
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: that the rainfall in the last week or so has
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: gone down dramatically is not really relevant because the damage
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: has already been done catastrophically. Well what about all the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: damage that is already been done with the millions and
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: millions of illegal aliens that have come in to this
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: country under the watch of Biden and Harris. So you know,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: once again, it's a bad issue for Harris. Whittaker did
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: a pretty darn good job of trying to hold her
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: feet to the fire. She doesn't have a good answer.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Is it a devastating exchange? I don't think so. I
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: don't think that there's a smoking gun here where every
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: undecided voter is going to go, oh my gosh, she's
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: just not up to this. And so I do think
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: that conservatives and Trump fans were celebrating a bit too
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: much and taking too much of a victory lab when
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: it came to the actual impact of this sixty minutes
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: interview my theory and I actually provided this theory on
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: a serious radio show hosted by Dan Abrams. On Who's
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: News Nation television show, I go on quite a bit.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: In fact, I went on last night on a different topic,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: but Dan had me on for about an hour to
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: talk about the sixty minutes interview that Harris did, and
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: his whole take was that conservatives are overplaying their hand here.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: This wasn't that bad for Harris, and my theory, which
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I provided to Dan, was that I'm not sure it
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: was about the answers. I think it was about conservatives
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: being so thrilled that some of these legitimate questions were
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: finally being asked in a mainstream, legacy media outlet, which
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: presumably had a large audience with a sixty minutes special
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: on a Monday night, that seeing Bill Whittaker, a black
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: man CBS sixty minutes raising at least some of the
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: issues that Trump fans think Harris needs to be confronted on.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I think that understandably. So I think that was part
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: of why conservatives and Trump fans reacted so strongly and
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: in such a positive way to the sixty minutes interview.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Was almost shocking to see, my gosh, Harris is being
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: asked legitimate questions on a mainstream, legacy media outlet. So
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: I thought that that was probably why there was the
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: reaction among conservatives. Now the impact I have no way
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: of knowing yet. My guess is it didn't help Harris.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I don't think she's going to gain many votes from
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: the sixty minutes interview. Is it possible she loses a few, Yeah.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I think the main goal there was to check the
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: box that she was doing substantive interviews. They clearly had
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: a strategy. Well, Okay, we're gonna do call her Daddy,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: We're gonna do Howard Stern, we're gonna do Stephen Colbert.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Those are all gonna be super softball, and they're gonna
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: be much more lifestyle personality interviews. We have to at
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: least check the box. If we're creating a meal here,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: there needs to be at least some meat, and so
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: we have to give the legacy media something. The show
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: that we're at least pretending to be substantive in sixty
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: minutes clearly checks that box. And so from the Harris
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: campaign perspective, they survived. They checked the box. There was
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: probably limited damage at least among the key voting groups,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and so it wasn't a huge loss, although it might
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: have been a huge loss for Tim Waltz because for
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: some reason, they also did an interview with Tim Waltz
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and Whittaker basically took Waltz to the woodshed over the
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: issue of his fabrications and specifically what happened with regards
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: hard to him claiming to be in China during the
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Tieneman Square uprising and turn that turned out to be false.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Once again, I wished that Whittaker would have gone a
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: little bit further and raised some of these other topics,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: but Waltz to me looked at least as bad, if
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: not worse than he did during the vice presidential debate,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: and here we have, you know, we have Bill Whittaker
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: basically lecturing Tim Waltz about, you know, what a knuckle
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: had he is, and it just came off to me
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: as not being ready for prime time. I thought it
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: was emasculating. And if Waltz was actually a candidate, this
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: is I think a moment that would have had very
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: significant impact. But here is what that sounded like. When
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Whittaker confronted Tim Waltz about one of his many fabrications
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: in his biograph.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: In your debate with JD. Vance, you said I'm a
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: knucklehead at times, and I think you were referring to
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: the time that you said that you were in Hong
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Kong during the Tiananman Square and unrest when you were not.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Is that kind of misrepresentation? Isn't that more than just
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: being a knucklehead.
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: I think folks know who I am, and I think
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: they know the difference between someone expressing emotion telling your
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: story getting a date wrong by a rather than a
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: pathological liar like Donald Trump.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: But I think it comes down to the question of
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: whether whether you can be trusted to tell the truth. Yeah,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: well I can't. I think I can.
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: I will own up to being a knucklehead at times,
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: but the folks closest to me know that I keep
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: my word.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Now what kind of impact this whole issue of Tim
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Waltz being a serial fabricator or liar is going to have,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: It's very difficult to tell. I don't think it's certainly
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: good for the Harris campaign. It may take away some
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: of the momentum that they had, you know, but I
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: don't think people vote based upon the vice presidential nomination.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: I think that if if the narrative was more focused
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: on and more well set, that both of them have
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: done this. I mean, like with the whole McDonald's story.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: And I know there are a lot of conservatives that
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: think that Harris is lying about owning a gun. She did,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: thanks to Whittaker, get asked about that in a more
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: specific way. She claimed that she owns a glock, that
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: she has fired it at a shooting range, and that heck,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: she's a you know, former prosecutor so member of law enforcement,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: so that's why she has a gun. Yeah, I know
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: most Trump fans don't believe that story. I don't know
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: whether or not I believe it or not. You know
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: there are people who know a lot more about guns
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: that think that a glock is unrealistic and has other
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: problems related to it, and the fact that the story
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: has kind of dripped out with more and more details
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: is suspicious. I'm going purely on my knee jerk, gut instinct,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: my blink reaction. I am more likely to believe the
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: gun story than I am the McDonald's story. I'm certainly
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: open to the idea that the glock story is false.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: I understand why people don't believe it, but I don't
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: know why. But for some reason, I don't get overwhelming
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: bullshit when she's telling me the gun story. I could
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: be wrong about that. I'm just going by my gut instinct.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: But there's no question that you can argue that Harris
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: has a similar problem Waltz does. And if this was
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: a narrative about the entire Democratic ticket, that would be effective.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Of course, it'd be more effective that they weren't running
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: against Donald Trump, who's made his entire life about exaggerating
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: his own history, his biography, his accomplishments, and oftentimes not
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: even being fully aware himself about how delusionally he is.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: So that's one of the more frustrating elements of this.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: These are the types of issues that would have been very,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: very effective if Donald Trump was not the Republican presidential nominee. Now,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: I want to get to where CBS really screwed up
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: and how this is not, at least as of this taping,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: a bigger media story is beyond me. Because there was
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: a massive, a massive edit in the YouTube version of
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the CBS Bill Whittaker interview with Kamala Harris. I mean
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: this was so dramatic, so blatant, that even I was shocked.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: In fact, I had to check it like two or
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: three times because I'm always so wary of anything that
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: goes viral, especially among the Trump fans on Twitter, because
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of times it's bullshit and it's very frustrating
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: and time consuming, and you can never in this day
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: and age, especially at this stage of the election, you
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: can never take anything at face value. And it just
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: seems so insane when I saw the first clip, because
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: what was going viral was a question that Bill Whittaker
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: had asked Kamala Harris about Israel, and her answer was
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: as nonsensical as it gets. It was a classic Kamala
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Harris word salad. It was not ready for prime time,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: it was unprecedential. It was bad. Now again, you know,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: was it disqualifying? Was it one of those things that
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: an average undecided voter would go, Wow, that was really bad.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Probably not, because I don't think that the target voter
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: is really of that mindset. But it was not good.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: Well when it came that was what originally aired. But
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: then when it came time for the YouTube version to
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: be put together by CBS, the answer was completely changed.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Question was the same answer completely changed, edited, dramatically truncated,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, Harris sounds not just coherent,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: but actually pretty strong in her response. And it's not
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: even clear to me that this response is actually to
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: this question. I mean, this is straight out of nineteen
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: eighty four George Orwell stuff. And I'm gonna play a clip.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: This is the clip that originally went viral. You're first
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: gonna hear Bill Whittaker asked the question of Kamala Harris,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: and this is how it was originally made public. And
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: then you're gonna hear the same question by Bill Bill Whittaker,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: but a completely different answer by Kamala Harris. So here's
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: what that sounded.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Like, but it seems that Prime Minister Netanya who is
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: not listening.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: in a number of movements in that region by Israel
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: that were very much prompted by or a result of
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: in the region.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: But it seems that Prime Minister Netanya, who is not listening.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: We're not going to start up pursuing what is necessary
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: for the United States to be clear about where we
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: stand on the need for this war to end.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's chilling. It's so outrageous that I'm almost
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: not even angry about it because I'm thinking, how can
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: this possibly be? And yet it's gotten no as far
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: as I can tell mainstream media attention. In fact, just
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: to give you a little insight as to how I
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: do things and how the media game sometimes works behind
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the scenes. So I already referenced that I did this
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: about a forty five minute serious national radio show with
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Dan Abrams, and I had been booked to do his
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: television show on News Nation later in the evening, and
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the subject matter was different. It wasn't the sixty minutes
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: interview it was a topic I'm going to get to
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: in a little bit, which is this absurd CBS controversy
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: where one of their anchor people is in big trouble
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: because he dared to ask some questions of a guy
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: who's very anti Israel in a way that I thought
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: was very well done, very respectful, and it's an absurd controversy,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: but it's the CBS Morning Show. And so after I
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: did the interview with Dan on the radio, I learned
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: of this YouTube edit, and I'm thinking, you know what,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: it's quite possible that I'm gonna bring this up if
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: I have the opportunity, because of both of these subjects
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: involved CBS, and here's CBS is, you know, has this
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: internal controversy involving this non issue interview. It's actually a
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: very good interview that somehow is a journalistic crisis for CBS.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Yet here they are caught red handed and somebody somehow
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: dramatically edited this interview to make Harris look a heck
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: of a lot better then she actually should. And no
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: one's talking about this. So after I made sure that
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: this was actually what happened, I emailed Dan and just
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: to give him my heads up because I was seeing
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: that this was not getting any mainstream attention, and I
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: didn't want Dan to be blindsided that I was going
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: to raise this and for him to not have any
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: clue what the hell I was talking about because it
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: wasn't getting nearly enough attention, and Dan was obviously very busy,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: so I just made sure just in case it came up,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: that he was aware of it, which I shouldn't even
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: have to do. See, that's the point of this. I
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have had to do that, because this should have
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: been everywhere. Everyone should have been talking about how the
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: hell did this happen at CBS. Now, as it turns out,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: I did not get to connect what happened at CBS
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: in the morning show with this edit issue with sixty minutes,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: But the important part of this, I should not have
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: had to do that because this should have been ubiquitous
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: to anyone who is paying attention in the news or
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: to the news, and it was not. And so I
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: thought that was very, very telling about what's going on here.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: But I have yet to hear any sort of an explanation.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know as of this taping that CBS has
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: even been forced to put out a statement I do
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: know that the Trump campaign is demanding a transcript of
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: the full interview between Bill Whittaker and Kamala Harris, which
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I think is a smart move, and so I'll be
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: very curious to see what ends up happening there. You
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: would think that if the Trump team is fully on this,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: that we're eventually going to get some sort of answers,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: and that maybe this will become a bigger news story,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: and maybe that'll spark this being a right wing media story.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: At least again, as of this taping, I have not
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: seen evidence of that could be happening by the time
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: you listen to this. But that was really startling and
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: really depressing, because here we have a situation where the
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: best example of journalism, when it comes to an interview
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: with Kamala Harris done by Bill Whittaker, an old school
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: pro gets this massive blemish put on it because of
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: something I'm sure Whittaker had nothing to do with, which
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: was the YouTube version of this interview looking nothing like
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: the version that had already been made public and raising
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: all sorts of very legitimate questions about the editing of
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: this interview. Now, this was obviously not the only interview
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: that Harris has done in the last few days. I've
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: already referenced call her Daddy, which we talked about in
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: the last episode of the podcast. She also was very
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: very brave. She was so very very brave. You see,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris went on the View and that was very
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: brave of her because only one hundred percent of the
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: audience in New York City was going to be voting
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: for her, and only one hundred percent of the hosts
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: are going to be voting for her, and only one
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: hundred percent of the producers are going to be voting
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: for her, and obviously they're almost all women as well.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: So this was a very very tough deal for Kamala Harris,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: very brave for her to go into the lions den
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: of the View. But sometimes, obviously I'm being facetious sometimes,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: and I've said this before, sometimes the most vulnerable situation
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: for a candidate or a personality in public personality is
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: when they are in an extremely friendly environment. It's a
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: weird phenomenon. I think partially it's because of expectation. Partially
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: it's because they let their guard down and aren't nearly
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: as focused or concerned because they know they're in safe territory.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, this has been something that I
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: have noticed for many, many years that sometimes the worst
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: things can happen when you're getting soft questioning from a
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: very friendly interviewer. And that may have happened on the
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: View because Harris was asked one of all this everything
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: she was asked was basically a softball question, but one
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: of the more hard hitting questions, if you want to
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: call it, that was, Hey, what would you have done
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: differently if you had been president? You know, you've been
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: vice president of Joe Biden, So what would you have
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: done differently? And Harris's answer was, eh, nothing, And I'm
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: not exaggerating this. And here's what it sounded like on
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: ABC's The.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: View, Well, if anything, would you have done something differently
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: than President Biden during the past four years? There is
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: not a thing that comes to mind in terms of
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: and I've been a part of most of the decisions
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: that have had impact.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Now. That was perceived, especially online, by a lot of
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: right wing influencers and Trump fans, as the smoking gun moment.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, even some liberals were very nervous about that
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: answer because she's saying that I wouldn't have done anything differently. Now,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Biden recently has said that Harris was on board with
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: everything we did and that you know, she was a
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: big part of my administration. And so now the narrative
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: seems to be, okay, she's exactly like Joe bid Biden,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and there's no distance between them, and so therefore she
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: has to take the blame for anything that it's happened
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: in the Biden administration. And I can understand why if
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: you're especially a Trump fan or a conservative right winger,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: whatever you want to call people in that category. In
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: this day and age, it gets very confusing. In the
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Trump era, are believing that that was a major mistake
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: because Biden's approval numbers have been underwater forever and ever,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: it was obvious that Biden was going to lose to Trump,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: and so from a policy perspective, when you tie Biden
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: and Harris together that tightly, that can't be good for Harris.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: By the way, before I go further into this, this
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: reminded me of a kind of the opposite of a situation.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: I'm probably the only person on the planet that thought
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: of this, for better or for worse. But in the
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty election, Richard Nixon was the Vice president United States,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: running against John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower was
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: asked about what contributions, or what specific contributions Richard Nixon
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: had made during his administration, and he said something to
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: the effect of I can't think of one, but if
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: you give me some time, maybe I will. And that
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of people thought might have been the difference
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: between Nixon losing which he did barely in a highly
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: contested and some people to this day believe stolen election,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: and winning that election. That Eisenhower basically saying that Nixon
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: did nothing of importance really hurt Nixon. Well, here we
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: have almost the exact opposite situation where Biden is now
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: saying she was involved with everything, and Harris can't come
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: up with even one thing that she would have done
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: differently than Joe Biden. I agree that's not good. Now
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: is it devastating? I would like to believe that the
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Trump campaign is going to use that in commercials and
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: use that in every way they possibly can. That's probably
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I'm almost certain that of all the things that she
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: has said during this interview Blitz, that that's the one
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: that the Trump campaign is going to focus on the
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: most politically that would make the most sense. I will
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: just add this word of caution that I don't think,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: even though it could be effective, I don't think that's
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: a knockout blow. And part of why I don't think
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: that's a knockout blow is something that I've alluded to
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: previously that I think Biden's lack of popularity, his extreme unpopularity,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: especially when he was running against Trump, has been somewhat misinterpreted.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: I believe that the public was waighed of the media
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: when it came to Biden not being up to running
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: and serving another term in office, and that that was
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: the source of his dismal approval ratings as well as
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: why he was losing to Trump. And the proof of
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: that was that as soon as the coup happened and
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: the Harris switcheroo happened and everyone rallied on the Democratic
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: side around Harris Boom, she was up by at least
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: five or six points in comparison to where Biden was.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: And that told me, because it wasn't because of Harris.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: We needn't know. No one knows anything about Harris, she
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: was unpopular herself. That that was simply about the age
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: issue being eliminated, and it's not about policy by and large. Now, look,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: I mean it's against many of him, not all all
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: of the Biden policies, as anybody. But when you look
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: at reality through the lens of a target undecided voter,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: which is usually a very low information voter, things aren't
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: that terrible. And they're also not that terrible for let's say,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: moderate Republicans in the suburbs, suburban moms, who are I
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: think a key voting group, especially in Pennsylvania, and they're
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: looking around and they're going, you know, I don't agree
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: with all this, and you know, Harris may not be
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: the greatest thing, but you know, the stock market is
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: at an all time high, interest rates are going down.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: It seems like we're finally getting rid of getting over
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: the COVID inflation. I don't like Trump, and you know what,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: I'll go with this, and so I'm not sure that
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: policy is the magic bullet here. I wish that it was.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: I wish that we lived in a country where people
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: voted on policy, but I just don't think we do anymore,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: especially not the people that are going to decide this election,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: the people that are still undecided. The independence the low
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: information voters and the key demographic of the suburban moms
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: who probably don't think things are all that bad, and
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: especially in the Northeast, like in Pennsylvania or in Michigan
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: or Wisconsin. They're not impacted on a daily basis by
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: illegal immigration. And they're also convinced that the abortion issue
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: is a huge deal, if so, you know, with regard
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: to policy. Unfortunately, there's a whole mess of very key
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: voters that believe, I think wrongly, that that somehow is
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: the most important issue or one of the most importes,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: and it's an issue that is not good for Trump
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: no matter how hard he tries to switch his position
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: on abortion, because Democrats in the media have created this,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: i think largely bs narrative that somehow abortion is on
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: the ballot. My god, there are commercials here in southern
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: California for congressional races that no lie, no lie, no exaggeration,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: claim that Maga Republicans are going to make abortion illegal
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: in California. That is a direct quote from a commercial
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: that is basically ubiquitous against a couple of different Republican
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: incumbents on the congressional level here in southern California, that
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: is the level of insanity that has occurred on the
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: abortion issue. So anyway, I agree that her answer on
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: the View was terrible. She got a second bite at
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: the apple on the Stephen Colbert Show, which A're going
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: to get to in a moment, which I don't think
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: she did any better on. And so if there was
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: a flub, If there was a gaff, that was it.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: You ought to at least be able to come up
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: with something, something, at least just to show that you're
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: your own person. But to not be able to come
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: up with anything, I agree, is damaging. Although I don't
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: think because I don't think people vote on policy, and
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: I don't think the key voting demographics think that things
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: are all that horrendous in this country, I don't know
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: that it's nearly as bad for Harris as a lot
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: of Trump fans would like to believe that it is.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: There's one other clip I want to play from the
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: View interview, and this really doesn't have much to do
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: with the media perspective other than the fact that there
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: this was presented in a very softball fashion, and you're
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: going to here lots of ooing and eyeing from the
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: View panelists who were slobbling, slobbering all over Kamala Harris.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: So there's that part of it, and there's no follow
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: up at all to any of this. But they did
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: ask her to tell the story one more time, because
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: she's told different versions of this. They asked her the
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: question about what happened when Joe Biden called her to
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: tell her that he was dropping out of the race. Now,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: I am referring to this version of Harris's answer as
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: kind of her extended dance version of the story. I mean,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: she's adding in all sorts of little details about Auntie Kamala,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: and obviously she's doing this to appeal to the audience
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: of the view, both in the studio and more importantly
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: at home watching on television. Auntie Kamala, you know, or Kamala.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I would have been admonished on the view
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: because they even referenced the mispronunciation of her name, as
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: if that's some sort of a badge and honor that
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: somehow have you mispronounced her name by accident. It's inherently racist.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: But Kamala was asked to one more time tell this story.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: And here's why I'm playing this. I would like to
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: do a thought experiment here. Hear me out. When you
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: listen to this clip, I want you to imagine that
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: this has nothing to do with Harris becoming the Democratic
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: presidential nominee. I want you to listen to this from
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: the perspective of this is a person who is waking
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: up on a Sunday morning and gets a call from
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: a friend to check their lottery ticket that they purchased
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: for the the Big Lotto that week because they think
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: they have won. And I would like you to think
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: about what would be different in the telling of the
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: story or the details of the story if this was
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: the story of a woman finding out that she had
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: won a multi multimillion dollar lottery that was going to
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: change her life. I would submit to you that almost
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: nothing about this answer would have been different, and that
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: there's some psychological significance to that. Now you can decide
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: for yourself if I'm right. But here's what happened on
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: the view when Kamala Harris was asked one more time
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: to tell the story of Anti Kamala and what happened
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: when Joe Biden called her to inform her that he
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: was withdrawing from the presidential race.
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: You get this phone call and you, I guess you
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: can tell who's calling.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: And what does he say?
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: So I'll set the scene for you.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: OK.
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: So it's the sun and our family, my niece, her husband,
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: and their two daughters were staying with us, and I
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: had promised them that Sunday Auntie was going to make
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: pancakes and bacon, and we have a really and you know,
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: the kids wake up, the girls they're six and eight
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: they were at the time. They wake up early. We
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: always wake up the first, so they come knocking on
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: the doorway and we have our quiet time in the morning,
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: just me and the girls. And so I went to
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: workout and I had on cooking shows and they were
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: asking me, Auntie, what's that Ingredient's that ingredient? And they're
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: playing while I'm working out. Make breakfast. We sit down,
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: we're having a breakfast and we'd been working on a puzzle,
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: so they want more bacon. Got more bacon. Then you
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: know how it goes. And so then we had a puzzle.
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: So we went back up to work on the puzzle.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: I'm still in my workout clothes and we're working on
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: the puzzle and the phone rings, So I said Auntie
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: you'll be right back. And it was the president and
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: he told me his decision, and I'll tell you, the
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: first thing I asked him is are you sure? Because
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: what a big decision.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: And historic.
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: And we talked for a while. Meanwhile, I went back
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: into the room where the girls were and I'm like,
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: go get your father, because I knew he'd be up somewhere.
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: And so we laughed afterwards, Nick is their father. We
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: laughed that Almara the elder one, was kind of like
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: Paul Revere, and Leela, the younger one, was Paul Revere's horse.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: But you know, so there were these It was a
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: real split screen, obviously, and then the rest of the
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: day was I mean, it was. It was surreal. I'll
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: tell you honestly. One of the first people I called
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: was my pastor. I mean, I needed to talk to God,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: you know, and and to pray. It was I understood
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: in real time what was happening, and obviously then it
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: really set in in the hours and days to come.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it was quite a day.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Now. I found that to be interesting in the way
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: that Harris's views what happened, and I do think of
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: it as her winning a lottery. Now, I get that,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: there's there's an aspect to that that's human nature, right,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: But to me, it's it's troubling because it doesn't show
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of substance. It doesn't show the level of
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: stanning of the magnitude of what happened. It also feels
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: very out of the loop about what was transpiring. Now
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: we're supposed to believe that she was a trusted aid.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: Now I'm fully aware he doesn't want to be a
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: trusted aid during this time period because then she can
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: get caught up in the coup and in the cover up.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: And once again, that would have been the natural follow up.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: So what did you know and when did you know it?
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: About Biden's decision? I mean, this is presented again, That's
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: why I use the lottery ticket metaphor. This is presented
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: as if it's completely unexpected, totally out of the blue.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, he just called me and I was
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: completely shocked by this. Is that really what happened? So
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: were you really that out of the loop? Or uses
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: saying that because you don't want to be any part
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: of either the cover up or the coup. We're never
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: gonna get now, especially we're never gonna get an answer
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: to Harris's role in the Biden cover up of his
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: health or with her role when it came to benefiting
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: from the Biden coup, and we certainly weren't going to
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: get that on the view.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: Thanks for listening to today's free drop of the abbreviated show.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: If you're interested in listening to the entire show, you
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: must become a patron.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: Please go to Patreon. That's p A t R e
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: O n dot com.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 5: Patreon dot com Slash the Death of Journalism with John Ziggler.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: My name is j O h N z I E
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: G L e R. That's patreon dot com. Slash the
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: Death of Journalism with John Zigler. Good luck to you
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: on that. But that's how you can subscribe.