ABC’s Good Morning America co-host, NFL on Fox co-host, and former NFL player Michael Strahan should never be placed anywhere near a hypothetical pantheon of esteemed journalists.
But, in welcome contrast to his softball sit-down with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Strahan absolutely barbequed Democratic vice presidential candidate and Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) on Friday over what he and Vice President Harris would do differently than President Biden, the Biden-Harris’s economic record, and the litany of lies he’s spread about his resume.
Strahan began with Harris’s disastrous appearance on The View:
Vice President Harris was asked this week on The View if she would have done anything differently than President Biden...When it comes to President Biden and the presidency, do you — would you or do you see anything you would have done differently?
Walz bumbled his way through by invoking Donald Trump’s response to the Covid pandemic and praised how Biden and Harris handled it, along with “working for the middle class” and “protecting reproductive care”.
Strahan followed up, realizing Walz didn’t answer him: “So, it makes me want to ask you, do think that Biden has done everything right?”
Walz argued in part that he’s not sure “anyone does everything right, but I can tell you he’s done everything in the best interest of the American public”, which led into Strahan questioning why Walz said this week the Electoral College should be abolished yet the campaign disagrees.
Incredibly, Strahan got Walz tied up in a follow-up if this means he and Harris “disagree on” “something”: “[T]he campaign and my position is the campaign’s position.”
Strahan shifted to the economy and drilled home the reality that voters hold the Biden-Harris regime responsible for their pinched budgets.
When Walz tried to insist he and Harris feel their pain, Strahan hit back with the fact that Harris could have implemented policies she claims would have improved the economy any time in the last three years (click “expand”):
STRAHAN: 74 percent of voters say in the past year they’ve had to cut back on groceries because of the rising costs, of course. And lot of voters — they’re concerned that, if they cast a vote for Kamala Harris, that she’s responsible for that.
WALZ: Yeah.
STRAHAN: How do you reach those voters? What do you say to the voters who may blame her for the economy right now?
WALZ: Yeah, folks in the middle. Well, we talk about ‘em about what are the policies that are going to make a difference. We see some of the data, but data doesn’t impact people in their daily lives, going to the grocery store. And you see false information, whether it’s bird flu impacting eggs. But the reality for most people, if costs are up, they want to know what she’s going to do about it. I think that’s why she’s focused on — whether it’s making sure homeownership more affordable, tax cuts for the middle class, and — let’s just be candid about this — there’s price gouging piece of this.
STRAHAN: And something that former President Trump said, something that was in your debate was — they were saying that, hey, these are policies that Kamala Harris could have done three years ago when she was in the White House with President Biden and she never did. What do you say to people who bring that up, who say that?
WALZ: Well, Donald Trump had four years to do it, if you’re going to talk about that. And that the — point is you need a partner in Congress. You’ve seen — we’ve seen different bills ready to pass and Donald Trump makes sure he steps in. We saw it around immigration -- a bipartisan bill widely respected, wanting to make a difference, holding true to our values, securing the value. Donald Trump steps in and says, look, that’s gonna hurt my political future. Let’s not make it happen.
Strahan ended with a softball about having been a former high school football assistant coach, but not before a brutal series of questions about his resume:
Let’s talk about your record and you call yourself a knucklehead. You call yourself a knucklehead because you made some statements that just aren’t true. And the comment about weapons of war that you carried in war, but you didn’t. You said you were in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre, when you weren’t. You kinda chalked it all up to bad grammar or getting dates wrong. But your opponents say you lied to make yourself look better. Do they have a point?
Walz did himself no favors as he never explained any of these statements and instead tried to throw more punches at Trump (click “expand”):
Well, look, 35 years ago, I got the opportunity to be in Hong Kong — be in China, learned a lot about it. Served 24 years in the National Guard. Passionately, in an instance talking about gun violence in schools — on an instance there. Proud of the service that I have done. Proud to be a teacher in that classroom. Proud to have been very public all these years. And — and owning it when I — you know, when I said I was there in August of ‘89. I think what you see here, you saw it in Minnesota. Been elected eight times here. These things have been very public for folks here. They see the results of things that we’ve passed. We see a state that’s top five state for business. We’ve seen third best state — top three states for raising a child. And we’ve got the best health care. And I think policies, whether it be dealing with China and understanding China’s human rights record, what you can be certain there is that Kamala Harris and I aren’t gonna, you know pick dictators on speed dial, see Xi Jinping as doing a good job during Covid as Donald Trump said. And I think those lessons learned over a lifetime of being very public, whether it’s in the classroom or being elected.
Strahan was Doocy-like with a stinging follow-up: “Well, you know, you — but — but it’s one of the things with trust. Because there are going to be some people who will say, we can’t trust him to tell the truth about himself. What do you say to them?”
Walz argued all he’s done was “missing a date when you’re there” and complained those poking holes in his resume were “spinning something for political reason,” which Strahan was unmoved by: “And Vice President Harris said that she told you to be a little more careful on how you say things.”
The Minnesota governor again committed a gaffe by combining his “school shooters” slip-up with his “weapons of war” one: “Well, I did it, you know, even the other day of just speaking passionately about these gun violence situations and meeting with these survivors. I sat in the room with the Sandy Hook folks. I — a friend of David Hogg, who’s been an activist on this.”
To see the relevant ABC transcript from October 11, click here.
