I've finally gotten around to watching the entire CNN interview with Kamala Harris. For the record, it was half an hour long. It struck me as fairly ordinary, with Harris performing just fine. She didn't make any waves, but neither did she stumble or have trouble with any of the questions. Nor did she filibuster.
As usual among us political junkies, I was sort of stupefied that Dana Bash ended up asking about a grand total of four (4) actual policy issues: inflation, fracking, the border, and Israel. That's it.
However, I want to highlight one question in particular. Very early on Bash stated as fact that we have a "crisis of affordability." (There's that word crisis again!) This is flatly untrue. Since the start of the pandemic, wages have grown more than prices. It's common to believe that things are relatively more expensive than they used to be, but journalists should be in the business of telling the truth, not parroting mistaken perceptions.
Also worth a note: Bash seemed a bit incredulous when she asked Harris, "You maintain that Bidenomics is a success?" For the record, here are the most recent major economic readings in the US:
- Real GDP: Up 3.0%.
- Inflation: 1.9%.
- Unemployment: 4.3%
- Real wages: up 0.7% annualized since start of year.
- Stock market: up 18% since start of year.
Every one of these is either good or excellent. What's not to like?
Here are the 27 questions Bash asked:
- What would you do on Day 1?
- There's a crisis of affordability.... What do you say to voters who want to go back on the economy, when groceries were less expensive and housing was more affordable when Donald Trump was president?
- The steps that you're talking about now, why haven't you done them already?
- You maintain that Bidenomics is a success?
- Do you still want to ban fracking?
- In 2019 you said "There's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking." So it changed in that campaign?
- What made you change that position at the time?
- Was there some policy or scientific data that you saw that you said, "Oh, I get it now"?
- You were tasked with addressing the root causes of migration.... Why did the Biden-Harris administration wait three and a half years to implement sweeping asylum restrictions?
- About bipartisan border bill: You would push that legislation again?
- In 2019, you raised your hand when asked whether or not border should be decriminalized. Do you still believe that?
- How should voters look at some of the changes that you've made?... Is it because you have more experience now and you've learned more about the information? Is it because you were running for president in a Democratic primary? Should they feel comfortable and confident that what you're saying now is going to be your policy moving forward?
- Will you appoint a Republican to your cabinet?
- Anyone in mind?
- Donald Trump suggested that you happened to turn Black recently for political purposes.
- Would you withhold some US weapons shipments from Israel? That's what a lot of people on the progressive left want you to do.
- No change in policy in terms of arms and so forth?
- To Walz: You said you carried weapons in war.... A campaign official said you misspoke. Did you?
- Did you misspeak?
- You didn't use IVF.... Your campaign made false statements in 2006 about an arrest for drunk and reckless driving. What do you say to voters who aren't sure whether they can take you at your word?
- To Harris: You were a very staunch defender of President Biden's capacity to serve another four years.... Do you have any regrets about what you told the American people?
- When Biden called you and said he was pulling out of the race, what was that like? And did he offer to endorse you right away or did you ask for it?
- And what about the endorsement? Did you ask for it?
- So when he called to tell you, he said "I'm pulling out of the race and I'm going to support you"?
- To Walz: I just have to ask you both about two standout moments.... Gus Walz saying, "That's my dad."
- To Harris: Viral photo of your grand-niece watching your speech.... What does it mean to you?
- Did she talk to you about it afterward?
Zero questions about climate change. Zero questions about Project 2025. Zero questions about abortion.
Because those are things only Democrats care about, not corporate sponsors or "real americans (aka Republicans). 😉
You tuned into the wrong music video channel.
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At least Dana was able to squeeze in every feeble right wing talking point they've flung since Harris entered the race.
Looks like David Rothkopf agrees with you.
“Kamala Harris Hits it Out of the Park, CNN Not So Much”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kamala-harris-hits-it-out-of-the-park-cnn-not-so-much?ref=home
I give Harris a solid B, Bash a gentlewoman's C-.
Harris was not amazing, but that wasn't the goal. She's fluffing a declining but still-important constituency (national news reporters) - no reason to waste too much effort on them, but they got their doggie treat.
The questions are phoning-it-in garbage that hobbled Bash, but that's just one aspect of why legacy media is becoming irrelevant. I've never been terribly impressed by her, but she's competent given the constraints.
And I'm personally gratified that they're still freezing out Dash and Kahn - fuck those twerps.
Well said, especially "a declining but still-important constituency"... which is perfect, but also - gulp -- kinda describes the Trump-voting electorate of 2016.
What do you say to voters who aren't sure whether they can take you at your word?
trump lies, you lie, both sides... amirite?
dear cnn: the dose makes the poison
Hey, she cited nearly two-and-a-half mistruths from the past 18 years--that's enough to give anybody pause about whether or not a Harris-Walz admin can be trusted.
"You didn't use IVF."
Jesus Christ. This is almost as bad as "You didn't put your summer job at McDonalds on your resume."
Ah, but you are missing how it cuts right to the heart of the question over which presidential candidate is likely to nominate judges opposed to reproductive freedoms.
On the one hand, Trump nominated justices who created a majority to reverse Roe v. Wade. On the other hand, Harris's veep candidate talked about IVF in the context of his family's own reproductive health.
Without fully drilling down on the latter, and focusing on it to the exclusion of other issues, how can the voting public know what Harris's stance on reproductive freedoms aside from listening to her talk about it?
repeating my suggestion: they should quantify these fasle statements by "Trump" unit. Walz would score about 2 microTrump.
That would remind people who is actually the lier.
Affordability, while still somewhat subjective, is when one’s wages are at or above one’s needs. If something was unaffordable before, wages growing faster than prices means something is affordable if the wages have grown faster long enough. Wages growing faster than prices means affordable by itself only if something was affordable before.
Yes, but the point was there isn't a new crisis of affordability (the way Bash phrased it). If things were affordable under Trump, they're affordable now.
That's a very odd and pedantic interpretation, and totally at odds with the actual question which presumed that voters "want to go back on the economy, when groceries were less expensive and housing was more affordable when Donald Trump was president."
It's a terrible question, and Kevin is right: to the extent that stuff was affordable 4 years ago, it is _more_ affordable now, not less.
"journalists should be in the business of telling the truth, not parroting mistaken perceptions."
"Anyone can read the news to you. I promise the feel the news at you."
--"Stephen" "Colbert"
Voilà !
I thought Jamelle Bouie's 4-min. critique of the questions was excellent:
https://www.tiktok.com/@jamellebouie/video/7408923502851394859?refer=embed
One curious thing about the interview with Harris and Walz. The setting is a world away from what joint interviews of the past looked like.
You can see a photo of yesterday's along with 8 others of nominees and their running mates here:
https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/30/kamala-and-tim-meet-the-press/
Not sure what circumstances led to the change, or if the change was driven by the campaign or the network. But it's different.
Why does this have any relevancy? They did the interview in a cafe rather than a fake office set? Who could possibly care?
For people on fixed incomes (us retired folks) affordability is a real issue since our income has not gone up by much (except for SSI which accounts for a small portion of many peoples income and interest on savings/investments). My 401K is looking quite healthy!
Obviously, lower tier wage earners (not engineers, bankers, IT and HVAC repair folks) and the elderly who do not have much income beyond SSI are significantly affected.
There is not really much that any administration could have done about inflation that effected the entire world, but the US economy removed really well when measured against our G7 peers.
Except SSI is indexed to inflation (it got a COLA of 8.7% in 2022) and interest rates were high and investments did well. Low tier earners had the largest increase in real wages of any income bracket. So I am not seeing why affordability is particularly pressing NOW beyond the fact that being low income ALWAYS sucks.
I am not seeing why affordability is particularly pressing NOW
that's easy to explain
it's a
republicanmedia narrative, while trump telling 30,000 lies over the course of his administration is definitely not arepublicanmedia narrativeI don’t think the phrase ‘fixed income’ is all that meaningful anymore. Social Security retirement benefits have been indexed to inflation since 1975. Before that, Congress had to pass legislation to adjust benefits, and also in that time, many retirees had significant pension income, which wasn’t typically indexed ( https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c11455/c11455.pdf ). So the phrase had some meaning. Now that SS is indexed, and 401k’s have replaced many pension plans, income is not fixed. Assuming one rolls over a 401k into an IRA, one has some degree of control over the income from distributions.
What's missing here is stall of people's lives; particularly young people in their late 20s through mid 30s. They are earning more money now. They have nicer clothes and newer cars, maybe, if they aren't swamped by college loans.
But they cannot afford a house and are often living with family or sharing with other young adults.
And that's because the homes simply aren't available, and they cannot compete with the investors from Black Rock and China purchasing the available housing stock.
Even as young adults are stuck (and so not having children) older adults who want to retire are sitting on their homes, growing some more capital, instead of downsizing.
So there's a missing measure of people economically stuck that isn't getting measured by these economic indicators.
Even if you are assuming that "affordability" relates to the extremely narrow and non-"crisis" category of people in their late 20s and early 30s who cannot currently afford a house* (despite having "nicer clothes and newer cars"), that's not what the question was about. It explicitly talks about "groceries" being unaffordable and (a) presumes a broad-based "crisis" in affordability with the voting public generally such that (b) things were better "back" when Trump was president.
None of that is accurate. It's a garbage and propagandistic question. Might as well say "There is a crisis of violent crime ravaging our once-beautiful cities. What do you say to voters who want to go back to the time when Trump was president and our cities were safe?"
__________
*and FWIW, Harris has talked about and has policy proposals for making housing more affordable. Trump has nothing.
After this interview we can see that it served no real purpose outside of politics as an entertainment event. Literally noone is better informed and no attempt was even made by CNN to inform people.
Definitely need more of these.....
The whole "Day One" obsession is so stupid, and also kinda fascist. First off, it's a misunderstanding of how US politics works. Second off, as if the US president can do a lot by him or herself....
Day One should consist of a speech ending with, "all standing orders remain in effect." And the day ending with a nice formal dinner followed by some dancing.
I'll give that an up vote even if there isn't a button.
housing was more affordable when Donald Trump was president?
Huh? That would be an appropriate answer to this question, whose predicate is wrong. Housing has been unaffordable under Trump and before him as well.
I did get a sweet refi in December 2020 when rates bottomed out due to the pandemic. But I bought in 2003 as a Gen Xer, saved up for years to do so.
Remember Robert Downey, jr's character in Oppenheimer?
There are a lot of people in Washington, and in the news media, who want to be that guy, and they're all out to wreck Harris and Walz.
While CNN apparently won't care, a place in Iran scores a heat index reading of 180 degrees F,
https://www.businesstoday.in/world/story/heatwave-alert-this-village-in-southern-iran-recorded-822degc-on-heat-index-443721-2024-08-30
Well gee whiz skipper, it’s not like djt could answer any one of those questions without lying, falsifying, or getting totally bogus and running 100 yards in the wrong direction and thinking he had a “home run.”
What were the overnight ratings on that interview? 100 viewers? 200?
The only people who cared that much to watch were the folks fearing or hoping for a gotcha moment.
Kevin: you demanded Kamala do interviews and now you’re bitching that the interviewer sucked. Anyone paying attention could’ve told you that the likelihood of the interviewer not asking many/any policy questions was near 100%. You got what you wanted - Kamala is doing interviews - but you’re still dissatisfied. Perhaps this is an indication that interviews aren’t necessary anymore, with the mainstream news media unable to conduct them to your satisfaction.
Aside from the gatekeeper getting his comeuppance...
There are some major issues with the supposed rebuttal of the affordability crisis.
1) That's average earnings, not median. Skewing is possible. I haven't looked into it, but just posting that and saying that it debunks the assertion is sloppy at best, and possibly incorrect.
2) It's obvious to anyone who knows what they're talking about with regards to housing prices that inflation under-accounts for housing costs, since about 2015.
3) Compounding #2, housing is the single biggest expense for the majority of households. It's risen faster than inflation for at least a decade. On top of that, more people are housing-cost-burdened than at any other point since we have stats on it.
It's pretty rich for an affluent/wealthy white guy to be saying that there is no crisis of affordability when he's not subjected to rising housing costs. Pun intended.
> Every one of these is either good or excellent. What's not to like?
These are not cumulative metrics. Show us the numbers for "the basket of goods" (or multiple different baskets) since pre-COVID to now, and the same cumulative numbers for wages.
That's what people are feeling, if they are feeling anything except media induced angst.
bash comes across like a hybred comer and gym. or a fox expert reporter.