On Thursday’s New Day, CNN co-host John Berman and guest host Erica Hill collaborated with chief political correspondent Dana Bash and White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins to protect Kamala Harris from President Trump's criticism. Bash was particularly hackish, as she accused Trump of being “anti-woman” for calling Harris “nasty” and declared that he had “walked right into what clearly has been a Biden campaign trap” by doing so.
Bash began the Biden/Harris propaganda by attacking Trump’s response to COVID-19:
Look, it already was a referendum on President Trump. That's something that the Biden campaign wanted and that they want. But just because of the nature of what you spent the first 15 minutes of this hour talking about, how completely out of control this virus is in the United States of America, and the fact that it is Donald Trump who is the President during this time and has a lot of things to answer for when it comes to his leadership.
Berman then rushed in to blast Trump for his use of the word “nasty” to describe Harris: "Joe Biden came out there and commented on how all the White House has in response and the President has in response is for the President to hurl the terms he has in the past to women, strong women, words like nasty, and then you know, like 20 minutes after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were done, that the President came out and called Kamala Harris angry."
And pray tell us John Berman what Joe Biden’s record is with women? But the Democratic hack is not concerned with sexism, as he and CNN have barely mentioned Tara Reade.
Collins dismissed any criticism of Harris:
But what's been clear is that they did not have a strategic line of attack on the vice presidential candidate yet. And aides actually thought around the President that after 24 hours, he would have a much more successful line of attack. They looked at how he treated Republicans in the Republican primary in 2016. But yesterday, he really just repeated a lot of things that he had said the day earlier when they had announced that Senator Harris would be running with former Vice President Joe Biden. And other than that, there was no real line of attack that you saw coming from the President. Now, that could change, of course, his campaign is going to be going through everything in her record to try to find some spot of weakness and they're going to try to emphasize that. But so far, the President does not seem to have been able to land a really successful line of attack against her.
Bash then chimed back in with more DNC talking points, arguing that Trump is “anti-women” for calling Harris “nasty” and that he had walked into “a trap” set by the Biden campaign by doing so:
They've dubbed her radical left and -- and probably -- it's probably a cut and paste job that they would have put in for whomever Joe Biden picked. But you're right, it -- it is -- it is clearly much more difficult for them for whatever reason. And there's a lot of frustration that the -- the one thing or the one line that the President has seized on is really transparently seems to be anti-woman, and because of the terms that he's using, nasty and so forth, and also personal.
I mean, you mentioned this. He walked right into what clearly has been a Biden campaign trap that they were preparing to lay if Joe Biden decided on Kamala Harris and that trap is, of course, you can't imagine picking somebody who criticized you, because that's not the kind of person you are. It's the kind of person Joe Biden is who can look beyond that and not, as you saw, you remember, in that press conference, on the back of his page, you saw his talking points, doesn't hold grudges. This is -- this is premeditated when it comes to the Biden campaign and Donald Trump can't help himself. He just, as I said walked right into it.
It is now sexist to criticize women!
Since she is Biden’s VP choice, CNN will do whatever it can to protect Harris.
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Read the full August 13th transcript here:
CNN's New Day
08/13/20
7:16 AM ETERICA HILL: Senator Kamala Harris placing the blame for the coronavirus response squarely on President Trump, offering a vision for how the new Democratic ticket could get America out of this crisis. Joining us now is CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash and CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collings -- Kaitlan Collins, sorry Kaitlan. You know Dana, as -- as we look at this, it was clear, and I think there was much made after the speeches that we saw there, that we were seeing what Senator Harris does as a prosecutor, as she was laying out that case. And this Biden/Harris ticket is really making the election about where we are right now as a country and changing that direction by getting hold of this pandemic.
DANA BASH (CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT): Absolutely. Look, it already was a referendum on President Trump. That's something that the Biden campaign wanted and that they want. But just because of the nature of what you spent the first 15 minutes of this hour talking about, how completely out of control this virus is in the United States of America, and the fact that it is Donald Trump who is the President during this time and has a lot of things to answer for when it comes to his leadership. It would be malpractice for the new Biden/Harris campaign ticket not to focus squarely on that. And, of course, it -- it fits right into what Joe Biden said that he wanted to focus on when he first ran, which is that this is a country in desperate need of -- of -- of radical change when it comes to leadership and a -- a course correction, and somebody who's been there and done that. And you're absolutely right, Kamala Harris, she kind of stepped in line on those arguments. Those are arguments that she made very clearly and very loudly when she ran her own presidential campaign. She's been making those arguments in the United States Senate. But she used much more of the Biden campaign language, which she wove into her own, as you said, prosecutor -- prosecutorial style, even saying, you know, Kamala Harris for the people. I mean, that was the beginning of her presidential campaign. And she kept it, even though she tried to make extremely clear that she is now Team Biden and she is subordinate to him and what he wants in his strategies and in his policies.
JOHN BERMAN: You know, as Dana has noted on the T.V., and I listen to every word you say closely, one of the things they did even as they were rolling out the new ticket was to really continue to make this a referendum on President Trump --
BASH: Definitely.
BERMAN: -- because that's where they want to be in this race. The question, Kaitlan, is how will the White House and Donald Trump respond? How are they responding, and to an extent, Joe Biden predicted it, right? Joe Biden came out there and commented on how all the White House has in response and the President has in response is for the President to hurl the terms he has in the past to women, strong women, words like nasty, and then you know, like 20 minutes after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were done, that the President came out and called Kamala Harris angry. Has the White House settled on a response or how does that strike you?
KAITLAN COLLINS (CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT): Yeah and he claimed that he had not watched that entire speech by Biden and Harris, but, clearly, he had watched some of it. Because then even when a reporter read him the attacks that Senator Kamala Harris made directly on the administration's COVID-19 response, saying that he did not take it seriously from the beginning and that he failed to listen to the experts. The President didn't really refute that. He didn't say, no, I've been taking this seriously since January, since February, and he didn't say, no, I do listen to the experts every time they recommend something. Instead, the President kind of shifted his eyebrows up and then he talked about testing and he talked about ventilators. But what's been clear is that they did not have a strategic line of attack on the vice presidential candidate yet. And aides actually thought around the President that after 24 hours, he would have a much more successful line of attack. They looked at how he treated Republicans in the Republican primary in 2016. But yesterday, he really just repeated a lot of things that he had said the day earlier when they had announced that Senator Harris would be running with former Vice President Joe Biden. And other than that, there was no real line of attack that you saw coming from the President. Now, that could change, of course, his campaign is going to be going through everything in her record to try to find some spot of weakness and they're going to try to emphasize that. But so far, the President does not seem to have been able to land a really successful line of attack against her.
HILL: Dana, I -- I find that not just surprising but really remarkable that were at this point. Word was very clear that Kamala Harris was among the top contenders as a vice presidential pick for Joe Biden. So the fact that they're just now figuring out, oh, we need to do some opposition research, we need to really dig into who she is, she's not an unknown quantity by any stretch of the imagination. The fact that they don't have any sort of a coordinated plan, I think, really says something about the campaign, as well.
BASH: It -- it -- it is surprising. Look, we have seen in a lot of the fundraising emails and so forth that they've put out since Senator Harris was picked. They've dubbed her radical left and -- and probably -- it's probably a cut and paste job that they would have put in for whomever Joe Biden picked. But you're right, it -- it is -- it is clearly much more difficult for them for whatever reason. And there's a lot of frustration that the -- the one thing or the one line that the President has seized on is really transparently seems to be anti-woman, and because of the terms that he's using, nasty and so forth, and also personal. I mean, you mentioned this. He walked right into what clearly has been a Biden campaign trap that they were preparing to lay if Joe Biden decided on Kamala Harris and that trap is, of course, you can't imagine picking somebody who criticized you, because that's not the kind of person you are. It's the kind of person Joe Biden is who can look beyond that and not, as you saw, you remember, in that press conference, on the back of his page, you saw his talking points, doesn't hold grudges. This is -- this is premeditated when it comes to the Biden campaign and Donald Trump can't help himself. He just, as I said walked right into it.
