When even Obama’s former speechwriter has to come out and tell the media they’re downplaying how radical Kamala Harris is, it’s pretty bad.
But that’s exactly what happened during the Obama alumni podcast, Pod Save America Thursday. Former speechwriter and co-host Jon Favreau mocked the media’s characterization of Harris’s politics while taking glee in the idea that progressives were now being covered as moderates.
After spending several minutes gushing over Harris as charming and funny, (“I think her charisma--I think she’s the best speaker on a Democrat party major ticket since Barack Obama!”) Favreau asked his co-hosts what they thought about some progressive pushback to Biden’s choice.
Former Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer was encouraged by Biden moving to the extreme left on issues like climate and student debt. He encouraged progressives this was a “sign” they would get what they want in a Biden-Harris administration:
“The progressive activists are going to have a real opportunity to have a real influence on the agenda in a Biden-Harris administration,” he gushed.
Favreau agreed, and insisted Harris had evolved on her positions since she was District Attorney of San Francisco.
He laughed at the media calling Harris a "moderate:"
"It was hilarious to me that she's being called, in all this coverage, a 'moderate,' like Joe Biden has found a fellow moderate or centrist," Favreau said, noting Harris's extremely liberal record:
"She supports something extremely close to 'Medicare for All,' which Bernie Sanders acknowledged in his statement supporting her. She's for the Green New Deal. She has one of the most liberal records in the U.S. Senate!" he gushed.
At the same time, he was pleased that now the media considered the radical left, "moderate and centrist:"
If you want to call Kamala Harris's record in the Senate and her policies that she's supporting now centrist or moderate, great. If that's where the Overton Window has moved, then congratulations to all the progressive activists, because you have f***ing moved the sh** out of that window, that supporting the Green New Deal and basically Medicare for All is now moderate and centrist. Fantastic, I'll take it.
Favreau also encouraged progressives to put Harris or Biden’s “feet to the fire” if they started backsliding from their radical promises.
Certainly the Obama alumni's intent is to appeal to the younger Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democrat party with these comments. But he actually ends up affirming President Trump’s warning that Harris is far-left, and the Democrat party is rapidly moving in that direction.
H/T: Grabien and Washington Examiner
Read a partial transcript below:
DAN PFEIFFER: Look at the movement that Biden has made on a whole host of issues, he’s really the first candidate I can think of that wins a primary and moves left….Biden’s made real fundamental and substantive shifts on issues like climate and student debt and taxes and other issues and that should be seen I think as a sign that even if this not the vice presidential pick you would’ve chosen, that the progressive wing, the progressive activists are going to have a real opportunity to have a real influence on the agenda in a Biden-Harris administration.
JON FAVREAU: Yeah I interviewed Kamala when she came to Crooked and I pushed her on a lot of her past policies and record when she was DA and AG. I talked to her about her truancy policies and she said if she was to do it over again she wouldn't do the same thing. I think we have to understand that public officials elected officials are products of the time that they're from, that they are in. As a DA in 2004, she refused to seek the death penalty for a man who killed a police officer. She was attacked by police officers and police officer associations. She was attacked by Dianne Feinstein. almost lost her race for AG because of that. That’s sort of in your mind when you’re trying to run for office back then.
It was hilarious to me that she's being called, in all this coverage, a 'moderate,' like Joe Biden has found a fellow moderate or centrist. She supports something extremely close to 'Medicare for All,' which Bernie Sanders acknowledged in his statement supporting her. She's for the Green New Deal. She has one of the most liberal records in the U.S. Senate, like if you want to call ... Kamala Harris's record in the Senate and her policies that she's supporting now centrist or moderate, great. If that's where the Overton window has moved, then congratulations to all the progressive activists, because you have f***ing moved the sh** out of that window, that supporting the Green New Deal and basically Medicare for All is now moderate and centrist. Fantastic, I'll take it.
