After the ABC News three-against-one ambush of former president Donald Trump during what had been coyly billed as a “debate,” Trump has since announced he is not interested in a third debate. Why would he? Unlike Charlie Brown, Trump knows that Lucy will lie and always pulls the football away.
During the first debate against President Joe Biden on CNN, Trump won the election itself. Determined to not let that happen again, ABC put on a naked display of bias and hostility, with moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis acting more like lions in the coliseum looking for lunch instead of journalists interested in providing Americans with a fair and informative debate.
We know there was forethought to the “Get Trump” approach at the debate courtesy of a puff piece in the Los Angeles Times about Davis. In it, they lauded her “fact-checking” of Trump while characterizing her as a “sharp blade.” She and Muir, we’re told, “studied hours of campaign rallies and interviews” ready to counter egregious statements, as though they were also debating him.
When the Times asked Davis why they did that, she told them proudly it was in response to what happened during the June 27th CNN debate which ended Biden’s campaign. “People were concerned that statements were allowed to just hang and not [be] disputed by the candidate Biden or the moderators,” said Davis. They did not check Harris at all, and contradicted Trump on statements that were true. And that was the point as they became Harris’ bodyguards, wingmen, and bouncers.
How obvious was the interference? Democratic Pollster Mark Penn is calling for an internal investigation at ABC to determine exactly what happened. RCP reports, “Pollster and former Clinton strategist Mark Penn called on ABC News to hire an outside law firm to look into internal communication between the network and the Harris campaign and to ‘what extent’ they planned on ‘rigging the outcome of this debate.’ […] ‘I think the day after, suspicion here is really quite high, and I think a review of all their internal texts and emails really should be done by an independent party to find out to what extent they were planning on, in effect, you know, fact-checking just one candidate and in effect, rigging the outcome of this debate. I think the situation demands nothing less than that,’” said Penn.
Harris couldn’t be sure of how much support she would receive, but Democrats have known for decades that the legacy media is their very good friend with benefits. There is one rumor that Harris was given sample questions before the debate. This belief is fueled by the fact that Hillary Clinton was given at least some questions before one of her debates in 2016 with Trump. If the last 10 years have taught us anything, it’s that anything is possible, yet, let me explain why this time it is an extremely unlikely scenario.
Consider that Harris didn’t need to know the questions because her strategy was not to answer any of the questions. We saw that immediately with the first question of the evening when Muir asked her, “Do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?” She never answered the question, but delivered a wordy non-answer, filled with platitudes and noise, thus revealing her strategy for the entire debate. Muir tipped his studied bias when he did not confront her about not answering perhaps the most important question of the debate. Harris was nervous up to that point, but learned very quickly, the moderators had her back.
With her responses, we learned Harris had been prepared to respond to every question, no matter the topic, with empty and patronizing statements as distractions. Very much like when Jill Biden praised Joe Biden after his career-ending debate with Trump with, “Joe, you answered every question!” But Kamala didn’t answer the questions, she simply responded to them. And considering the result of the debate through focus groups, interviews, and emerging polls, independents and the undecided recognized her evasiveness immediately.
Bottom line: When you have no intention of genuinely answering any question, you don’t need the questions in advance.
Harris’ strategy was to replace her go-to word salads with more formal and less complicated patronizing declarations combined with mugging for the camera, smirking at Trump, making sure there were no cackles, and general pantomime & mockery. In other words, the strategy was for her to be a “Vapid Mean Girl”. Trump haters were thrilled; the average American voter? Not so much.
Our situation for at least the last decade has been exhausting. The American people have been treated by the establishment as though we are disposable dish rags, as our lives are upended by financial disasters and foreign wars to which our loved ones are sent to die. We now live with trepidation about what fresh hell (thank you Dorothy Parker) the next day will bring as our country explodes into a dumpster fire.
President Trump and his family have gone through even more, also meant to exhaust and ruin them and, in what was no doubt a wish fantasy of pushing his family to demand he withdraw from public life. The goal remains to imprison him while in the meantime some lunatic might do their job for them by permanently taking him off the field.
The behavior of Kamala Harris during the debate was badly advised and was another sign that they really have no connection with the nature of what’s happening with the American people. They had no interest in providing more specifics on what she would do about the economy, the border, and about the general decline of American life and the dangers we face every day. They simply don’t care, because we are only shadows to them.
They have no intention of ever telling us what they’re going to do to us, and so that precludes the need to get questions in advance or to take any action geared toward even trying to make it appear as though they care about the country. They know and we know what their plan is. We have been living in it through the last 3 1/2 years, and I would argue for the last 50 years.
We must be focused and determined for the eight weeks leading to election day, and must not forget early voting us almost upon us. Yet, this is only the start, as when Trump is reelected is when the hard work really begins. Stay steady, and do your best to avoid getting drawn into rabbit holes or distracted from our mission.
Tammy Bruce, an Independent Conservative, has traversed a unique political journey that reflects her commitment to principles rather than party affiliations. She joined Fox News in 2005 as a Political Contributor, hosting her show “Get Tammy Bruce” on Fox Nation and providing insightful commentary on various issues for the Association for Mature Americans (AMAC).
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.