Host Jon Karl opened today’s broadcast of ABC This Week with a 16-minute interview of former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, with which to facilitate her (and former Vice President Dick Cheney’s) announced decision to vote for a Democrat for President- Vice President Kamala Harris. And Karl sought to bolster that endorsement with a proven falsehood.
WATCH as Jon Karl repeats the lie that “Kamala Harris has moderated” on a whole range of policy issues:
ABC THIS WEEK
9/8/24
9:05 AM
JON KARL: You've made it abundantly clear that you have had policy disagreements with Harris. You still have policy disagreements with Harris, but she has moderated her positions on a whole range of issues from where she was just, you know, just a few years ago. Did those moderations and the efforts to present kind of a moderate face at the Democratic Convention- did that make the decision to endorse her easier?
Karl makes this assertion but offers no evidence to back it up. Did Harris hold a press conference wherein she explained her policy shifts? Was this mystery press conference covered anywhere in the media, or did it get lost somewhere in the Brat Summer of Joy?
This moderation is manufactured out of whole cloth for the purpose of giving the Cheneys the thinnest of policy fig leaves in light of their decision to endorse Harris. But it was exposed as fake the last time Karl tried to trot this talking point out, just two weeks ago (click “expand” for transcript):
On #ThisWeek, @JonKarl unaware of Harris’s stance against private health insurance. When @SenTomCotton notes it, Karl: “What do you mean taking away health insurance? What are talking about?” Then: “That is not her position now....clearly making an effort to move to the middle.” pic.twitter.com/dLk3LEnuCp
— Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) August 25, 2024
ABC THIS WEEK
8/25/24
9:24 AM
TOM COTTON: And President Trump is going to draw a sharp contrast with Kamala Harris, who has supported things like decriminalizing illegal immigration or giving taxpayer-funded health insurance to illegal aliens or taking away health insurance on the job for 170 million Americans, banning gas cars, confiscating firearms. These are all positions…
JON KARL: What do you mean taking away health insurance? What are you talking about?
COTTON: She said when she ran for president that she wants to eliminate private health insurance on the job for 170 million Americans, Jon.
KARL: Yeah, I mean, th- that is not her position now. She no longer…
COTTON: How do you know that's not her position? How do you know that's not her position?
KARL: I mean, she- she said she no longer supports medicare for all.
COTTON: She has not said that. She has not said that. Maybe anonymous aides on a Friday night have said that, but the last thing that she said on most of these topics…
KARL: This was not a radical convention. She- she- she- as you heard me go through with Bernie Sanders, she is not taking the positions of the far left of her party. She's clearly making an effort to move to the middle.
COTTON: I did hear what you said to Senator Sanders, and I thought it was clear that he is very disappointed that she's taking these efforts not to change her positions, but to hide her positions, Jon. The American people are totally justified to conclude that Kamala Harris is a dangerous San Francisco liberal, based on what she campaigned on the last time she ran for president and what this administration has done the last four years. Again, you would have thought watching the Democratic convention last week, that the Democrats are not in office, that they're not in power, that they're campaigning against an incumbent Republican, when in reality she's been part of the failures of the Biden-Harris administration for four years. And when she campaigned for president in her own right, she did, in fact, promise things like decriminalizing illegal immigration, taking away health insurance on the job.
KARL: I mean- but that's a position she's clearly changed on…
COTTON: No, she hasn’t.
KARL: …and she said she has changed- Yes. Yes, she has.
COTTON: No. She has not. She has not said that.
She did not say that. But the Regime Media, desperate to manufacture a permission structure for Republicans to defect en masse to Harris, have also manufactured a “moderation” that simply does not exist.
