It's been a chummy month of October between the Biden-Harris team and the allegedly "hard-hitting" CBS News program 60 Minutes. On October 1, the puffballs were given to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Two weeks later, it was softballs for President Biden.
On the last Sunday of the month, the White House offered up Vice President Kamala Harris for a celebration of her "savvy." The correspondent was not Scott Pelley. No surprises: it was Bill Whitaker, the lone black correspondent on the show.
This was the most nauseating passage.
BILL WHITAKER: If politics is a game, Kamala Harris has proven herself to be a savvy player, forging a career that has gone from one first to another. The child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, she was the first woman district attorney for San Francisco; the first woman to serve as California's attorney general; the first woman of color elected senator from California…And the first woman and woman of color to be elected vice president of the United States. [To Harris]: Being in that unique position, being that "first"-- Does that bring added pressure?
KAMALA HARRIS: No doubt. No doubt. You know, my mother, she would say, "Kamala, you may be the first to do many things. Make sure you're not the last." And among the responsibilities that I carry and maybe impose on myself, that is one of them.
Apparently, Harris is "savvy" because she was picked over other black women for the position of Biden's running mate. Nothing she's done as vice president has been impressive. Just before the gush, Whitaker talked polls: .
WHITAKER: A recent CBS poll found that at the beginning of President Biden's term, 70% of young people, people under 30, said he was doin' a good job. Now it's less than 50%. Why is that? What's going on?
HARRIS: If you poll how young people feel about the climate, and the warming of our planet it polls as one of their top concerns. When we talk about what we are doing with student loan debt, polls very high. The challenge that we have as an administration is we gotta let people know who brung it to 'em. [Cringy laugh] That's our challenge. But it is not that the work we are doing is not very, very popular with a lot of people.
Then Whitaker uncorked an unintentional laugh line: "She blames the disconnect, in part, on lack of media coverage." As if repeated 60 Minutes puffery doesn't count? Whitaker admitted her approval rating (and Biden's) are at 41 percent in the latest CBS poll. He used the words "not very popular right now."
When the border actually came up, Whitaker's softball was met with Kamala blaming Republicans:
Whitaker: Most Americans say that they don't think you're doing a good job on the border, you and the administration. The number of people trying to cross the U.S. southern border is-- at an all-time high.
Kamala Harris: It's no secret that we have a broken immigration system. Short term, we need a safe, orderly, and humane border policy. And long term, we need to invest in the root causes of migration. But the bottom line? Congress needs to act. Come on. Participate in the solution instead of political gamesmanship.
Harris tried a similar spin when Whitaker told her that Democrat donors whisper to each other that if anything happened to Biden, they wouldn't "naturally fall in line" with her. "Our democracy is on the line, Bill. And I frankly, in my head, do not have time for parlor games, when we have a president who is running for reelection."
Finally, the CBS reporter reflected the liberal anger that they're not way ahead in the polls:
WHITAKER: Considering what you are laying out as your achievements, you have the current frontrunner-- for the GOP, Donald Trump, facing, what, 91 criminal charges.
HARRIS: I've lost count.
WHITAKER: Yet, the Biden-Harris ticket is running neck and neck with Donald Trump. Why are you not 30 points ahead?
