CBS Cheers Over Kamala Harris’s Debate Performance

Jorge Bonilla
September 11th, 2024 3:27 AM

Text to Speech

00:00 00:00
Font Size

The Regime Media regimed very hard whilst covering the second first presidential debate of this election cycle, between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. The Tiffany Network was no exception.

Outgoing CBS Evening News anchor and vice presidential debate moderator Norah O’Donnell gushed over Harris’s stylings:

NORAH O’DONNELL: It was fascinating to watch these two candidates spar over an hour and a half. Kamala Harris, the Vice President of the United States, on the offense for much of the debate against Donald Trump and you could say she kept chumming the waters and Trump kept taking the bait. Repeatedly, she kind of avoided the subject of the question that she was asked, pivoted to something else in order to goat Donald Trump and then he went there. He missed opportunities on issues like immigration and other things to really point out some big differences with Kamala Harris and some of the weaknesses that some voters believe that the Biden-Harris administration has. There's much to discuss about the topics tonight, certainly because this was a big night for Kamala Harris in her first presidential debate, as Donald Trump has now completed 7 of these.

One wonders she should still moderate the vice presidential debate. Also swooning over Harris: one of O’Donnell’s incoming replacements at the anchor desk- John Dickerson, seen here cooing over Harris’s prosecutorial mien and…policy specifics?

JOHN DICKERSON: I think the strategy was- she prosecuted Donald Trump. She was relentless. And I think it was, you know, when they teach you about writing, they say show and don't tell. Everybody knows pretty much the story about Donald Trump, so they weren't learning new information, but by baiting him, I think the intent was to say now look at look at the way he's behaving, and he did get emotional at times talking at one point about cats (CROSSTALK) People eating dogs and cats, which is very hard to follow. But I think in that emotional moment, which he's going to be on the wrong side of the replays, part of this is what gets replayed the next day- and then she pointed that and said, we don't want to go back to that, and that seemed to be her main argument, the secondary one, of course, being “I care about you and he doesn't”. And, in that case, we talk about plans and specificity. She was specific in parts about small business, child care, down payments on homes, the opportunity economy, she said that a lot. She didn't go overboard, but I think she — the question will be, did she send a signal? If she didn't go overboard, Donald Trump was quite brief in terms of — the only policy I could hear from him was about tariffs and deportation, so he said, “I have concepts of a plan”, but on the specificity, even though she wasn't overwhelming, she was certainly more than he was.

Dickerson is also firefighting Springfield, Ohio. Dickerson boldly proclaims, without evidence, that Trump will be on the wrong side of Springfield, Ohio. Time will bear that out and one hopes Dickerson will have the humility to circle back to this story. But not with held breath.

Now for some immigration cheerleading. 

NORAH O’DONNELL: When the topic of immigration came up, which is one that Donald Trump likes to hammer this administration on. He likes to call Kamala Harris wrongly the border czar. That was not specifically her — her job. She pivoted to crowd sizes and then he got distracted and said, wait a minute, I want to respond to the size of my — my rallies and then it kind of went veering off and he missed the opportunity to deliver some of the attacks that he has in the past on immigration.

Note also the firefighting on “border czar”. Not even a mention of root causes. Just straight firefighting. Vice presidential debate co-moderator Margaret Brennan chimes in:

MARGARET BRENNAN: I think you nailed it when you talk about chumming the waters and taking the bait, and I — that was clearly a planned strategy for the vice president here. We saw a demonstration of personality, not policy, to John's point, and — and within that, what I'm thinking of are some of the strongest lines where the vice president not only described him as easily manipulated, but showed she could do it in front of the cameras with lines like that, and she had this one zinger, ‘it's absolutely well known dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president because they are so clear they can manipulate you with flattery and favors.’ That is a powerful line in part because we are looking at someone who is arguing to be the first female Commander-in-Chief of the United States standing up there and saying, I want to have a strong military, and I'm going to show you how I can manipulate the man standing next to me right now on this stage. I thought it was an interesting strategy. She did it again and again.

We come to the abortion cheerleading portion of the program. Watch as O’Donnell brings up Trump’s answers on IVF and on the mythical federal abortion ban that has zero chance of passing this current Congress but that everyone demands to know whether Trump will sign:

NORAH O’DONNELL: Ed O’Keefe, some of the topics that came up very early in the debate were not only the economy, immigration, but then reproductive rights, which is considered a strong suit for Kamala Harris as vice president. And, on that issue, she did manage to tangle up Donald Trump. He got tangled up. He was unable to answer whether he would support a federal ban on abortion and then — repeatedly and then he got tangled up on the issue of in vitro fertilization where he kept saying just calling it fertilization, and he said at one point, I'm for fertilization. I've been a leader on fertilization. He did not have a comfort with that issue.

Not to be outdone, Major Garrett also weighs in on Trump’s debate performance:

MAJOR GARRETT: The central question for both campaigns is: right now, has Trump reached his ceiling and has Kamala Harris reached her ceiling? The Harris campaign believes there’s room to grow. The Trump campaign wants to bring her down because they think they’re at their ceiling. And tonight’s performance was loud, extravagant with lies, and based on that Trump support that already exists. The Harris obligation was, can you raise that ceiling? Can you find more voters with more persuasive language? To Nancy’s point, the Harris campaign believes they've got a bit of an edge there.

Finally, there was O’Donnell and longtime BET anchor Ed Gordon talking about the performative aspect of the debate, and about a wink to minority voters by speaking about Project 2025:

NORAH O’DONNELL: Ed Gordon, these debates are about policy and there was a lot of policy today. It may not have been a lot of new policy, but they're also the performative aspect of tonight, and it was interesting to see Kamala Harris in many of those two-shots where while her mic wasn't open, she sort of laughed at him. She put her hand up to her chin. What did you see?

ED GORDON: She knew exactly what she was doing. She set the tone when she walked out, shook his hand, and introduced herself by name, which I thought was very, very interesting. Um, she gave a lob to black and brown voters talking about Project 2025 very early on, and she understood the split screen. So when he felt that he was going a little far or she felt he was going a little far. She made it clear she was taking a look.

All in all, CBS was exultant about Harris’s performance on the debate stage, and made no effort whatsoever to modulate that…joy.

 

Donor Privacy Policy