The PBS News Hour led off two nights in a row with campaign trail reports from Laura Barron-Lopez, their most partisan reporter.
Anchor Geoff Bennett set the scene Monday evening, with Donald Trump in North Carolina on a post-hurricane Helene trip and Kamala Harris touring with former Republican congresswoman and famed anti-Trumper Liz Cheney. The story’s online headline did much of the work: “Harris campaigns with Liz Cheney as Trump again deploys dark and anti-immigrant rhetoric.”
Laura Barron-Lopez cooed over and hyped up the bipartisan love-fest.
PBS Reporter Laura Barron-Lopez: The Democratic nominee for president campaigned with unlikely company today, Republicans….Vice President Kamala Harris spent the day in moderated conversations with former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, starting in Pennsylvania….It's the latest in a string of unprecedented events Harris has held with Republican figures like Cheney. The pair then made their way to Michigan for another event.
The reportorial tone changed rather drastically when the focus shifted to Trump in North Carolina touring storm damage.
Barron-Lopez: ….the former president again deployed dark and anti-immigrant rhetoric in Greenville, North Carolina.
Trump: Under the Trump administration we are going to take back what is ours. We will end the looting, ransacking, raping and pillaging of North Carolina and, frankly, every other state in the union.
Barron-Lopez continued the desperate media pile-on around what was evidently an effective campaign stop by Donald Trump, manning a McDonald’s fry-station in Pennsylvania.
Barron-Lopez: On Sunday, Trump scooped French fries and served fast-food to staged customers at a Pennsylvania McDonald's. The political stunt comes as Trump has accused Harris, without any evidence, of lying about her college job at a McDonald's. On the same day, in an interview with FOX News, Trump again described Democrats like Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi as enemies from within
After talking about Trump’s odd tangent on Arnold Palmer’s physique and his calling Harris a “shit Vice President,” Barron-Lopez concluded with this ironic bit:
Barron-Lopez: In an MSNBC interview with Al Sharpton on Sunday, Harris said the American people deserve better.
Harris: And what you see in my opponent, a former president of the United States, really is -- it demeans the office. And I have said, and I'm very clear about this, Donald Trump should never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States. He has not earned the right.
Hmm. Perhaps America could also use a president who won’t grant interviews to racial arsonists like Sharpton?
Barron-Lopez also led the PBS News Hour newscast the following Tuesday evening, with a report that began objectively but quickly descended into fear-mongering.
Barron-Lopez: Former President Donald Trump received a warm response from Latino business owners and religious leaders at his golf club in Miami. Trump again used dark language to describe the state of the country.
Trump: We are a nation in decline. We're a failing nation. We're left out all over the world. No matter where you go, they laugh at us. They can't even believe what's happening.
Barron-Lopez:… and spent time sowing fear around transgender Americans.
The Trump clip aired sounded reasonable enough.
Trump: All they think about is transgender operations. All they think about is, we want men -- we want men to play in women's sports. There's a sickness going on in our country. We have to end the sickness.
Commercial narrator: It sounds insane.
Barron-Lopez: In the final sprint to Election Day, Republicans have poured millions of dollars into anti-trans attack ads that target Democrats up and down the ballot.
Commercial narrator: Kamala's agenda is they/them, not you.
Yet the party’s obsession with LGBT issues is a genuine electoral problem for Democrats, as party pollster Celinda Lake told The New Yorker: “People believe that we are constantly bringing it up, that we care about it more than the economy.”
Harris indeed noted her support for transgender surgery for federal inmates on a 2019 candidate questionnaire sponsored by the ACLU while she was running for president, a fact PBS didn’t bother to mention, desperate as the tax-funded network is to normalize such surgeries, even for teenagers.
These segments were brought to you in part by BNSF Railway.
Transcripts are available, click “Expand.”
PBS News Hour
10/21/24
7:03:08 p.m. (ET)
Geoff Bennett: Welcome to the "News Hour." As we near the two-week mark to Election Day, former President Donald Trump traveled to North Carolina to see the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, while Vice President Kamala Harris toured swing states alongside former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney. Laura Barron-Lopez has this report.
Laura Barron-Lopez: The Democratic nominee for president campaigned with unlikely company today, Republicans.
Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: This election is presenting for the first time probably in certainly recent history a very clear choice and difference between the two nominees.
And I think that is what, as much as anything, is bringing us as Americans together.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Vice President Kamala Harris spent the day in moderated conversations with former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, starting in Pennsylvania.
Fmr. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY): I have spent time working in countries where people aren't free and where people are struggling for their freedom. And I know how quickly democracies can unravel. But I tell you again as someone who has seen firsthand how quickly it can happen that that is what's on the ballot.
Laura Barron-Lopez: It's the latest in a string of unprecedented events Harris has held with Republican figures like Cheney. The pair then made their way to Michigan for another event.
Kamala Harris: What is at stake in this election is so fundamental that it really does cross partisan lines.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Meanwhile, Harris' running mate, Governor Tim Walz, spent the morning with the hosts of "The View."
Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), Vice Presidential Candidate: Nothing Donald Trump is proposing does anything about the middle class. And every economist, Moody's themselves, talked about what it would do to drive up inflation, potentially leading us to recession. So there's more work to be done. We acknowledge that. I think the vice president's proposals are real.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Former President Donald Trump was in Swannanoa, NOAA, North Carolina to tour storm damage from the recent hurricane.
Donald Trump, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: But it's vital that we not let this hurricane that has taken so much also take your voice. You must get out and vote.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Trump repeated baseless claims about the federal government's response to the disaster.
Donald Trump: Certainly, you have all heard the same stories that we all hear, that FEMA has done a very poor job. They were not supposed to be spending the money on taking in illegal migrants, maybe so they could vote in the election, because that's a lot of people are saying that's why they're doing it.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Later, the former president again deployed dark and anti-immigrant rhetoric in Greenville, North Carolina.
Donald Trump: Under the Trump administration we are going to take back what is ours. We will end the looting, ransacking, raping and pillaging of North Carolina and, frankly, every other state in the union.
Laura Barron-Lopez: On Sunday, Trump scooped french fries and served fast-food to staged customers at a Pennsylvania McDonald's.
The political stunt comes as Trump has accused Harris, without any evidence, of lying about her college job at a McDonald's. On the same day, in an interview with FOX News, Trump again described Democrats like Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi as enemies from within.
Howard Kurtz, FOX News Anchor: You talk about the enemy within. There's enemies, America's enemies, outside.
Donald Trump: Yes.
Howard Kurtz: The enemy within is a pretty ominous phrase, if you're talking about other Americans.
Donald Trump: I think it's accurate. I mean, I think it's accurate.
But when you look at "Shifty" Schiff and some of the others, yes, they are, to me, the enemy from within. And I think Nancy Pelosi is an enemy from within. She lied.
Laura Barron-Lopez: It's rhetoric Trump used against fellow Americans on a podcast days earlier.
Donald Trump: They were saying, he said the enemy from within. Of course. It's Adam Schiff. These are bad people. These are sick people and bad people.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson deflected when asked on CNN this weekend if Trump's vows to use the National Guard against political enemies was OK.
Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA): What President Trump is talking about is that they have been attacking and maligning him from the day he came down that golden escalator. Everybody knows that's true
Laura Barron-Lopez: At a rally on Saturday in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, hometown of the golf legend Arnold Palmer, the former president started talking about the late golfer's genitalia.
Donald Trump: Arnold Palmer was all man. And I say that in all due respect to women. And I love women. He took showers with the other pros. They came out of there and they said, oh, my God.
Laura Barron-Lopez: At the same rally, Trump used an expletive when talking about Vice President Harris.
Donald Trump: We can't stand you. You're a (Expletive) vice president.
Laura Barron-Lopez: In an MSNBC interview with Al Sharpton on Sunday, Harris said the American people deserve better.
Kamala Harris: And what you see in my opponent, a former president of the United States, really is -- it demeans the office. And I have said, and I'm very clear about this, Donald Trump should never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States. He has not earned the right.
*
PBS News Hour
10/22/24
7:03:04 p.m. (ET)
Geoff Bennett: Welcome to the "News Hour." Two weeks from today, the final votes will be cast and the polls will close in this year's presidential race. Until then, the Trump and Harris campaigns are making their cases in battleground states across the country. Laura Barron-Lopez has this report.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Both presidential nominees made appeals to a critical voting bloc today, Latino voters.
Donald Trump, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: The level of genius, entrepreneurship, energy that they have, it's an incredible community and, I like them and they like me.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Former President Donald Trump received a warm response from Latino business owners and religious leaders at his golf club in Miami. Trump again used dark language to describe the state of the country…
Donald Trump: We are a nation in decline. We're a failing nation. We're left out all over the world. No matter where you go, they laugh at us. They can't even believe what's happening.
Laura Barron-Lopez: … and spent time sowing fear around transgender Americans.
Donald Trump: All they think about is transgender operations. All they think about is, we want men — we want men to play in women's sports. There's a sickness going on in our country. We have to end the sickness.
Narrator: It sounds insane.
Laura Barron-Lopez: In the final sprint to Election Day, Republicans have poured millions of dollars into anti-trans attack ads that target Democrats up and down the ballot.
Narrator: Kamala's agenda is they/them, not you.
Laura Barron-Lopez: The former president also repeated attacks on his opponent's intelligence, criticizing Vice President Harris for not doing any public events today.
Donald Trump: She's lazy as hell, and she's got that reputation. And there's something wrong with her too. She's slow, low-I.Q., something. I don't know what the hell it is.
Laura Barron-Lopez: Vice President Harris had staff meetings and briefings in D.C., before giving interviews to Telemundo and NBC.
