There’s been a lot of grumbling in the media about Kamala not sitting for interviews, so these past few days she has sat for interviews. She was on “The View.” She sat for a long interview with Howard Stern. She did a podcast with Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy,” a very popular show whose audience is women., especially young women. And she did the obligatory interview with “60 Minutes.” So did Tim Walz. I thought she was terrific. Watch and seeehat you think.
Trump was supposed to be interviewed but he canceled at the last minute. He said the show owed him an apology for something Lesley Stahl said four years ago. He claimed she said that Hunter Biden’s laptop came from Russia; CBS denied it. He complained that CBS would fact check him; that was unacceptable. CBS said it always fact checks.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
60 Minutes literally edited her word salad answer, replacing it with an answer to a previous question. https://x.com/mazemoore/status/1843664856446316758?t=Zvbkrg59hv6zDN-gBuq9JA&s=19
I also loved her recent interview in which she initially couldn’t think of a single thing to distinguish her from Biden until she finally came up with “I’m going to have a Republican in my cabinet”.
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I will win no friends here for saying this but Harris does too often sound like a student bullsh!tting her way through answers with word salad. Or someone from HR doing a training session. It is what it is and it’s not ideal, but I’ll still vote for her.
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FLERP,
You judge politicians by their experience and life record, not by what they said an interview.
Everyone is watching to see if they make a mistake. Judge them by their works.,
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Glad we agree. I judge Harris for withholding evidence that would have freed a man from death row, for her fight to hold non-violent prisoners past their release date for prison labor, her campaign of locking up mothers of truant children, her placing trans women in men’s jails where they were raped, her refusal to prosecute Catholic pedophile priests or Steve Mnuchin’s bank, her refusal to override the Parliamentarian and vote for a minimum wage increase, her complicity with the Biden administration’s unconditional support of Israel’s destruction of Gaza (and now the West Bank and Lebanon), her “Do not come. Do not come” immigration policy, her…..
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Also judge them in relation to the virtues and vices of the alternatives.
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I cannot put a single comment in the right place today. Hopeless.
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I think they were both terrific, albeit not perfect. Walz was so much sharper than in the first 80 minutes of the debate.
T***p walked out on Lesley Stahl four years ago. What a friggin’ baby.
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That dumpster likes to REWRITE history. Trump LIES, GRIFTS, and is Putin’s handmaiden.
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Donald desperately needs psychiatric help in an institution for the criminally insane.
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All true. But the thing is that no matter what Biden, Harris, and Walz do or say, Trump’s MAGA will find something wrong with it, or twist it so out of shape as to be unrecognizable . . . and apparently huge numbers of people in this country are totally immune to that, or to the Trump/minion lie machine.
Oh yes, and don’t forget that Tim Walz “misspoke” about his trip to China–God forbid . . . don’t forget that. CBK
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If you really want to see someone “immune to truth,” watch the second interview on “60 Minutes.” Shelby Busch of Maricopa County, AZ, insists the 202O election was stolen despite all evidence to the contrary. She is a dangerous unhinged fanatic. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maricopa-election-officials-work-to-restore-belief-in-ballot-60-minutes-transcript/
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Trump’s team is searching every public moment of Walz’s life to find dirt to throw at him.
As if Trump and Vance are saints.
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A bonus that would come with a Kamala Harris win would be having Jim Gaffigan play Tim Walz on SNL.
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FLERP, I think that’s supposed to be Biden, not Walz.
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The guy playing Biden is Dana Carvey. Walz is played by Jim Gaffigan.
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F/SNL: I haven’t laughed that hard in a very long time. Kamala’s breaking of the wineglass was a fall-on-the-floor killer.
The guy on the right could have played Biden–but Carvey “did it” and even reminded me of Tim Conway along the way. (Laughs are hard to come by these days.) CBK
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Carvey is a master at identifying the little things to exaggerate and nailing them. “No joke! Guess what? And by the way . . .”
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Harris was masterful at deflecting or turning potential “gotcha” moments into positive messaging. She handled herself very well and did not say anything that could harm her campaign. Walz was personable while still owning up to his missteps. They make a great team of doers, meaning they both seem to know how to get things done. I hope they get to show the people that Democrats can actually get important things done. It was a good opportunity for the public to get to know them.
“60 Minutes” dissected the whole on again, off again booking of Trump on the show. It made Trump and his team look foolish and unstable.
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While googling for her appearance on 60 Minutes, I turned up all the commentary in the rightwing press. They tore her apart, called her responses “word salad.” Megyn Kelly was vicious. All the Murdoch media savaged Harris. Considering how inarticulate their candidate is, they should not be throwing stones.
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Since the introduction of Newt Gingrinch, all Republican’s ideas are just stones. There had not been a unique policy to come out of the GOP since the Reagan/Stockman recession.
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One of the most vile things the RightWingNutJobs do is refer to the Vice President as “The Camel.”
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The guy playing Biden is Dana Carvey. Walz is played by Jim Gaffigan.
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Wrong spot, as usual!
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Traitor Trump wants immunity from fact-checking, and he’s also waiting for his MAGA fascist justices on the US Supreme Court to make it illegal to fact check Trump.
The traitor also wants his six MAGA justices to make it illegal to point out Trump’s lies as lies. That the traitor’s lies must be treated as if they are true.
Oh, wait. Many traditional news media sites are already doing that. Ignoring Traitor Trump’s lies and treating them like they are normal facts.
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There’s an uncomfortable truth swirling around the Putin puppet – an elephant in the room that Republicans pretend isn’t there. It’s like a slow drip drip drip that lulls you into ignoring the growing ocean around you.
Trump is a traitor.
He sat at Mar-a-Lardo with our nuclear secrets that he stole sitting in boxes in his downstairs toilet. Now we find via Bob Woodward he’s had many secret phone calls with a poisoning fascist enemy dictator who threatens our allies in Europe and our sacred elections here at home.
Trump committed treason.
Can you imagine the reaction if that had been Obama? His ceaseless lies and attacks on fellow Americans and our institutions have simply become another tentacle of Russia’s asymmetrical war on the United States. The feckless Republican Party is truly adrift as it enables an authoritarian threatening wanton violence like a snarling cornered rabid dog.
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Funny. One would think fact checking is a very important practice.
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Definition of narcissistic word salad: ” It is recognisable through circular conversations & repetition, lack of logic, sweeping generalisations, use of words that are disjointed or unrelated to context, and contradictions. Essentially, it consists of a lack of semantic fluidity.”
Trump: “So I said, ‘Let me ask you a question, and [the guy who makes boats in South Carolina] said, ‘Nobody ever asked this question,’ and it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT —very smart. He goes, I say, ‘What would happen if the boat sank from its weight? And you’re in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery is now underwater and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there?’”
Unedited Harris 60 Minutes comment on Israel: “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. “
Clearly, there is a lot of confirmation bias by people latching onto the “word salad” lingo misused by right-wing media, when they are wrong about what really defines it. Interesting how the Harris haters are all parroting it now. Just more projection by the Trump camp; you can practically set your watch by it.
Is Harris perfect? No, and she was the first one to say so a long time ago. Did she give mostly a non-response to the question? Yes. Was her statement coherent? Yes. Does CBS edit all of their interviews? Of course, they do. A complete non-gotcha designed to deflect and distract.
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I was impressed by her ability to avoid the obvious landmines in the interview. When asked about support for Netanyahu, Harris reframed the question and made the response about loyalty to the people of Israel. She got through the interview looking like someone that wants to serve this nation with dignity.
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The 60 Minutes interview was dreck, but that had nothing to do with Kamala Harris and everything to do with the interview including some of the most insipid questions ever. The so-called liberal media has decided that “serious journalism” means presenting a Democrat with a right wing talking point and demanding a response, which the media then deems is “not good enough.” Explain why the public thinks the economy is crap? You dare to suggest that Trump is racist just because he led the birther movement and keeps telling America that Haitians kidnap and eat pets – what are you implying about Americans who vote for Trump if Trump is racist? Is it true you used to be Indian and only recently became Black? I thought Kamala did as good a job as ANY candidate in sidestepping the dreck, but unfortunately some people hold women, especially non-white women, to a higher standard that they don’t hold most white men to. It’s the same phenomenon we see when people strongly condemned Nikole Hannah-Jones and Harvard President Claudine Gay for making the kinds of minor errors or “plagiarism” that they minimize (or more frequently ignore) when white men or white women married to Republican billionaires do the same thing, or far worse.
Kamala’s appearance on Sixty Minutes was similar to the kinds of interviews Bill Clinton did with “news” organizations where he gave his typical “politician” answers. The myth that other candidates somehow were any better in these kinds of setting is just that – a myth. Clinton went on Arsenio Hall and MTV and voters got a much better conversation. much as Kamala on that podcast was better. Not because the interview was “soft” but because it was more than than answering right wing framed questions. Bernie Sanders does his rote thing when he is interviewed. So did Obama. There are a very few politicians like Pete Buttigeig and AOC who are able to answer those dreck questions from “serious journalists” by more gracefully diverting them to the real issues they want to talk about, but the criticism of Kamala here reflects the unfortunate reality that folks are criticizing her for being like all the normal politicians that do the same thing and those critics are fine with it. Double standard.
What is ironic is that while Kamala is no worse in these interviews than any other presidential candidate, it is Trump and Vance who duck and avoid questions. It is Trump and Vance who show an unwillingness to talk about policy. It is Trump and Vance who blatantly lie! It is Trump and Vance whose interview performances SHOULD raise serious doubts and questions about whether they have the moral and cognitive fitness to be president. But they get a pass.
Remember that JD Vance has admitted to intentionally lying about Haitian immigrants, and he has lied many times for the sole purpose of deceiving the public to believe in a false reality that Trump can save them from. Yet reporters somehow neglect to constantly demand Vance admit to his lies and apologize.
Sixty Minutes basically said to Walz, HOW CAN VOTERS TRUST YOU, YOU LIAR! But Walz’ supposedly horrible sin of “lying” was because he had a 30+ year old memory of being in Taiwan during the Tiananmen Square uprising, when it turns out he was in Taiwan six weeks after the Tiananmen Square uprising, when China was STILL very much experiencing the after effects of the uprising, with government crack downs. Walz never claimed to be IN Tiananmen Square or participating in the uprising himself. Walz never referenced anything except experiencing the uprising from another country – Taiwan – and it turns out he did not arrive in Taiwan until weeks after the uprising, when the uprising and the after effects were still foremost in everyone’s mind. Things were still very much ABNORMAL in China when Walz was in Taiwan two months later – the Tiananmen Square event didn’t end with the massacre. Walz was in Taiwan when China was hunting down those involved in the protests and charging people with “counter-revolutionary crimes – detaining, torturing and imprisoning them after show-trials. Of course Tiananmen Square was on everyone’s mind when Walz was in Taiwan a short time later! The repressive consequences were probably the major news story in Taiwan for at least the rest of the year! Walz referred to seeing the Tiananmen Square uprising because it INFORMED his own world view! Whether Walz saw the uprising live being reported on Taiwan tv, or if Walz saw footage of the recent uprising in daily stories on Taiwan tv about the repression and crackdowns and show trials that happened in the months right after the uprising did not change the fact that the Tiananmen Square event and watching the reaction of what was happening in China from a close vantage point affected Walz. It is ridiculous that the media has jumped on this as a “scandal” that the media says should make voters question Walz’ integrity and honesty.
This is a clear double standard. Trump said he was in Gaza when he was NEVER in Gaza, period! The media barely reported this lie! Trump and JD Vance can lie and lie some more and no reporter will ever ask them “How can voters trust you when you lie like that?” That would be far too biased, therefore only Democrats are asked that question after the media floods the zone to inform folks that Walz’ “lie” raises far more questions about whether you voters can trust him than anything Trump or Walz has ever said.
I think Kamala and Walz should spurn the traditional media with their insipid rote questions. Voters learned a lot more about Kamala from Howard Stern and the popular podcast she was on than from the so-called “liberal media” reporters so desperate to “prove” they are fair and biased by hammering Kamala and Walz with questions like “how can voters trust you, you liars who just won’t give us the policy details we reporters claim that voters are demanding.”
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The reason for this is that it is a well-known, if unspoken truth that Republicans lie all the time. There is nothing new about this. And with Trump, there is a presumption of lying. There has been since long before he ran for president. No one in New York has believed him about anything since he became a “successful builder”.
The media feels quite comfortable holding people like Harris and Walz to a higher standard because Republicans are the “liars” and the Democrats are self-proclaimed “truth-tellers”. And no one likes goodie-goodies.
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^^correction to what the so-called liberal media would call my “lie” above: I wrote that Walz said he was in Taiwan during the uprising, but that was incorrect – Walz said he was in Hong Kong during the uprising in 1989, not Taiwan. And Walz was in Hong Kong in 1989, but didn’t arrive until later in the summer (the uprising was in June)
During the uprising and when Walz was there soon after, Hong Kong was still under British control, not part of China. And Walz’ point was that because of the uprising, some people thought they should not travel into China, but he believed it was important to have people to people diplomacy and still do his teaching job in China. Using this as a “gotcha” is so ridiculous, because Walz’ point would have been moot if he hadn’t been in Hong Kong when the uprising was so recent in time that it was still a major issue that impacted his thinking. Walz was wrong about when in 1989 he arrived in Hong Kong, but he was correct that he was in Hong Kong at a time when the crackdowns and repressions that immediately followed it loomed large in people’s minds. Walz clearly arrived in Hong Kong when the Tiananmen massacre’s aftershock was going on.
These kinds of “gotcha” questions remind me of the “scandals” about Al Gore’s “lies” — remember Gore “lied” because Gore said the he and Tipper were the models for the Love Story novel, when it was only Gore himself who was the model (but not Tipper for the female love interest). And Gore “lied” for saying he invented the internet when he only worked very hard to make sure the information superhighway happened before most legislators understood its importance.
The media downplays important and harmful lies of Republicans but grabs onto these Democrat “lies” and presents them as valid reasons for the public not to trust the lying Democrat.
Which is why interviews with the mainstream media are simply a vehicle for the media to amplify right wing narratives, and the Dems should avoid until the media starts treating them the way they treat Trump and Vance.
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Way up there, RE: the “SNL” YouTube shows Andy Samberg on the right who is NOT Biden but is appearing as First…oops…Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
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That’s all well and good. Yes.
But Trump was in Scranton, Pa yesterday for one of his sickening MAGA rallies. And, Kamala is nowhere to be seen here.
Pennsylvania and particularly Northeast PA have been described as make or break for both candidates.
Other than canvassing, and remote phone calls, what else is the Harris/Walz campaign offering in my backyard? (I did go to volunteer.)
Kamala supporters should be mobilized with signs on strategic street corners and convoys of cars. Saw it with the Trump people in 2020.
Boots on the ground still matter.
Hillary didn’t get to Wisconsin etc… enough in 2016. Getting worried about a similar situation now.
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I know someone at the Obama rally in Pittsburgh right now! Kamala is out campaigning in other states but I don’t think they are taking Pennsylvania for granted at all, so I assume she will be back. But from what I hear, they are focusing a lot on turnout.
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Sure hope you are right.
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I heard Obama was also visiting the local canvassing offices, which is really great to motivate all those volunteers on the ground. But I hope they do put together a good ground game to get people out to vote.
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I agree – she was terrific
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