On Friday’s Good Morning America, ABC promised a puffball interview with Kamala Harris’s husband Douglas Emhoff, the “Second Gentleman.” Just the booking was deeply weird when Harris won’t grant an interview to ABC, even after they joined her in debating Donald Trump.
At the opening of the show, co-host Michael Strahan promised they would discuss “the economy, their family, and reaction to Donald Trump repeated attacks on Jews that support Democrats and Harris.” But the Jewish part didn’t air.
WHY are we getting interviews with Kamala's husband, and not Kamala? Isn't that deeply weird? pic.twitter.com/PnYcOELq33
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) September 20, 2024
ABC also boosted Emhoff with a puffball late-night interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live on September 5, where there was light banter about Doug's 34 seasons of fantasy football...after Kimmel mercilessly mocked Sen. Ted Cruz's sex life.
The most shameless omission in this Strahan piece came in touting Emhoff’s family and his first wife... and saying absolutely nothing about what we just learned on August 3 about how he broke up his first marriage: He cheated on his wife with the nanny and impregnated her. As far as we can tell, ABC has yet to report this on air! ABC-slash-DNC just stuck with feeling Doug’s pain about J.D. Vance and Sarah Huckabee Sanders mocking Kamala as childless:
STRAHAN: We've heard the childless cat lady quote. And just his week, Governor Sanders of Arkansas said, quote "my kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble. How do you react to a comment like that?
EMHOFF: Yeah, it's appalling for somebody who is in a position of leadership like governor to say something so repulsive and so out of touch, not only on the one, mispronouncing her name, which is disrespectful. She knows what her name is. And then two, as if you need to have your own biological children to be humble. But then to say as if women should be humble and you can see the pushback even from within her own party because it is a repulsive thing to say.
STRAHAN: Vice President Harris is step mom to 30-year-old Cole and 25-year-old Ella from the second gentleman's first marriage to Kirsten Emhoff.
[To Emhoff] It's been something to watch, speaking of family, to see your kids step up, to see your ex-wife step up.
EMHOFF: You know, we roll hard together, that's who we are. Kirsten has been incredible. When you attack Kamala, especially on issues about motherhood, Kirsten has been out there each and every time to tell the truth about who Kamala is, as a mother, as a person, as a member of our family, again, is always there for us.
Then, when Strahan turned to the policy agenda, Emhoff wasn't any more effective than his wife on how Harris will bring down prices and how she is somehow not responsible in any way for the current inflationary environment.
Strahan asked an obvious question: “What do you say to those who say how is she going to be different from what we've seen with resident Biden?” Emhoff answered that she would just offer more of the same, “we're going to continue to expand infrastructure, the CHIPS Act, bring chips manufacturing in here, the transition into clean energy and on the infrastructure piece,” blah blah blah.
Then the ABC co-host followed up. Some say “she hasn’t done that in three and a half years in office as vice president, do you think that’s unfair?" Emhoff said “Yeah. She’s the vice president, not the president.” No Democrat would accept that answer if the parties were reversed.
Strahan closed by telling his fellow ABC hosts Emhoff was "open and honest." That's easier when you're just helping him make the case for the Democrats.
