With Kamala Harris donor and Obama family friend Gayle King the lead host, CBS Mornings is always going to have a heaping of instances in which they come off as unofficial state-run TV for the left.
But Wednesday’s show reacting to the second 2024 presidential debate went over the edge as King repeatedly showed her excitement over Taylor Swift endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris while other co-hosts and guests wondered if “truth matter[s]” in America anymore since Donald Trump might win.
King huffed in the “Eye Opener” about the debate being “tense”, but her mood changed when, after the highlight package, she gushed that “a lot of people felt that” way in reaction to Jon Stewart joking on The Daily Show that Swift’s endorsement after the debate meant she watched like he did.
“Let’s see what Swiftie nation does,” she added, tossing to correspondent Weijia Jiang with debate highlights with more enthusiasm for how the night went in stating “Harris was consistently on the offense against Trump.”
Jiang concurred that “Harris repeatedly tried to bait former President Trump and her team says he took it every time” and touted Swift’s support for abortion as why she backed Harris.
“And when the former president tried to turn the debate to immigration, he furthered lies about immigrants in an Ohio town....A spokesperson for the city of Springfield tells CBS News that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed by immigrants,” she later concluded.
Pompous chief political analyst and former co-host John Dickerson lectured viewers that “Harris had a plan” and “stuck to” it by “bait[ing] Donald Trump” on issues that’d aggravate him, then pivot to argue he’s bogged down on pointless exercises.
CBS's John Dickerson: “Vice President Harris had a plan, she stuck to her plan and what was her plan? Her plan was to bait Donald Trump and when he responded in the way she hoped, when he took the bait to then literally point at him, or figuratively point at him and say, we don’t… pic.twitter.com/BwYpJqeiwr
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 11, 2024
Dickerson then heavily implied this strategy was possible because he believes Trump is unfit to be president.
This led to co-host Nate Burleson trying to seem scholarly in wondering aloud why, with the insinuation being Trump winning (or at least many Americans want to back him), if “truth matter[s]” anymore “because there were some falsehoods being spread, some exaggerations, some mixed truths by Trump.”
Without pushback, Dickerson declared this was exactly right and proof that “hanging in the balance” in this election “is whether truth matters” and thus declaring that voters should choose wisely by backing Harris.
Click the tweet to read the full transcript of this bananas exchange:
Some on ‘CBS Mornings’ all but endorse Kamala Harris on the basis of “truth” continuing to “matter” in America “hanging in the balance”
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 11, 2024
Nate Burleson: “In any other walk in life, I will ask you this question, and the answer really does matter, but I’m going to ask you, as it… pic.twitter.com/78W3ECiEq9
But, wait, there was more!
Dickerson stepped it up a notch to King’s approval as he defended the lack of a need to hold Kamala Harris accountable versus Trump’s “mistruths and lies” having a higher “frequency and seriousness” akin to too much salt in a meal being a bigger problem than not enough.
They also heralded the Swift endorsement as significant (click “expand”):
DICKERSON: But I think the important thing to know is, you know, because some of his supporters will say, well, Kamala Harris changed her positions on things. Donald Trump is in a totally different category. When we talk about mistruths and lies, the important thing to look at is frequency and seriousness and so it — you know, all politicians shade things a little bit, but it’s like saying, if you have a cook that adds a little too much salt to the meal, well, one cook adds a little too much salt to the meal, the other cook just gives you a box of salt. Donald Trump is the box of salt. He is constantly saying things that don’t have a basis in fact and that matter whether there was a free and fair election is at the center of the democracy.
KING: I always love your analogies, box of salt, I totally get that. Let’s talk about the Taylor Swift endorsement. People say celebrity endorsements don’t matter, but it’s interesting the timing of her endorsement, and it was so well thought out when she made reference to AI on the Trump side that, you know, she wants people to do their own due diligence. Will it make a difference? And what did you think of the timing?
DICKERSON: The way — right — the way she wrote it was, I’m just any other voter out there, and this is what I want.
KING: Yes.
DICKERSON: But it was, I was struck, actually. Usually what happens is, when you have a bad night, you announce something big, and I’m not suggesting there was coordination, but usually announce something big to kind of swamp the bad performance. Harris had as good a performance as they could probably want, both in her execution and in the response that Donald Trump made to her debate performance. So I was a little surprised at that, but Taylor Swift creates her own weather in the world, so she can do whatever she wants and the Harris campaign has got to be thrilled with this kind of one-two punch.
KING: Do you think it will make a difference for the voters?
DICKERSON: I think if you get everybody’s head that has not been paying attention to politics, to swivel to the campaign right now, this is a good day for them to be looking at Kamala Harris.
King had more rhetorical salivating to do with a separate segment for the Swift endorsement, gushing that Swift was “in her endorsement era — get it — after announcing her support for Vice President Kamala Harris last night after the debate in Philadelphia.”
Correspondent Jo Ling Kent dutifully sounded like a Swiftie herself (click “expand”):
KENT: Taylor Swift is known for dropping late night announcements, and Tuesday night was no exception....Swift pointed to a number of issues that mattered to her, including reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights. She said her call to action was also motivated in part by her fears surrounding AI. Those fears, Swift says realized when former President Trump posted fake images of her falsely endorsing him. Swift ended her post by trolling Trump’s running mate, JD Vance.
SENATOR JD VANCE (R-OH) [on FNC’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, 07/29/21]: We’re effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies.
(....)
KENT: Swift boasts a massive fan base of young people. But can she pack the voting booths with those same screaming fans? According to a recent CBS News poll, young people are the least reliable voters. Only 66 percent of registered voters, 18 to 29 say they will definitely vote in this year’s election. That’s compared to 94 percent of voters ages 65 and older. In Tuesday’s post, Swift encouraged her voters to register to vote, saying it’s much easier to vote early. Last year, which was a non-election year, Swift was credited with getting more than 35,000 Instagram followers to sign up to vote in a single day and in an election that could come down to razor thin margins in a handful of swing states, Democrats are hoping it could make a big difference.
King was enthralled, stating after she loved Swift’s endorsement because “[i]t’s not like she said vote for [Harris] because I’m voting for her” but “encourag[ing]” people to do their “own due diligence”. King added she loved the “childless cat lady” signature, making for such a “so well thought out” post.
“Even though it came from a celebrity, it’s important just to go vote. Hopefully, you will do your due diligence like she said,” said Burleson in agreement.
Governor Doug Burgum (R-ND) popped up in the next segment as treated to a pretty brutal lecturing from King and then Burleson with the two liberals melting down over Trump talking about Haitian immigrants overrunning Springfield, Ohio (click “expand”):
KING: [T]he thing that stuck with a lot of people today on both sides is Donald Trump’s false claim, by the way, that immigrants are killing and eating pets. Now, it’s been proven that that’s just not true. When you hear stuff like that, what do you think? And do you think that helps — that helps your cause in any way swing undecided voters to your side? It just seems so farfetched to anyone listening to it.
BURGUM: Well, I think what is really key to that is it brings the attention back to the strain that this unmitigated illegal immigration is having on our country. When you take a town in Ohio, I’d heard of Springfield, Illinois, I had never heard of Springfield, Ohio until yesterday, and then you take a community that small and with that size of immigration coming in, putting strains. You heard it from your own panel on this show, but putting strains on schools, on emergency services[.]
(....)
BURLESON: Now, do you wish that — do you wish that Donald Trump answered that question the same way you did, instead of perpetuating a false narrative that immigrants are eating cats and dogs and other people’s pets?
BURGUM: Well, I suppose in the same way. You know, maybe there’s some people on the Democrat side, maybe not wish that Harris hadn’t twice in the first 15 minutes brought up a false narrative about a project that President Trump —
BURLESON: Yes, but Governor, we’re talking about Donald Trump but let me ask you this while we have you. You know, when given an opportunity to talk about health care, you mentioned what matters to swing voters. Donald Trump spoke about a better plan, an alternative plan to ObamaCare, and he was given an opportunity. He said, I’m not president, but I do have concepts of a plan. A presidential debate is an opportunity to speak to the people about what that plan is, and he did not go into detail. Do you believe he could have answered that better, and should he do a better job of detailing what that plan is over the next 55 days?
The second hour had even more politics as Dokoupil and O’Keefe both wondered whether Swift’s (unsurprising) endorsement of the Democratic ticket will lock up a win for the blue team. The latter took particular notice of her sign-off, boasting the “cross-generational star” “rub[bed]” her lack of children and having a cat “in the face of Republicans”.
To see the relevant CBS transcript from September 11, click here.
