America's Talking - Bets: Morning After Unkind to Harris

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

The morning after was not kind to Vice President Kamala Harris, at least not at the leading national betting books. Already the betting favorite Monday by 9.2%, Republican former President Donald Trump surged to 17.2% by midday Thursday – the biggest headlines from each happening on Wednesday in interviews rather than campaign rallies. And each happened on the home of Fox News, a network known for the conservative lean to the right. Trump, appearing with Harris Faulkner on “The Faulkner Focus,” said transgender athletes competing in women’s sports would be banned if he’s given a second administration. Transgender woman means a person assigned the male sex at birth who identifies and lives femininely. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, Chief Content Officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. We were recording this on Friday, October 18th. Another week gone and another week closer to the November 5th general presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris participated in a contentious interview with Fox News, former President Donald Trump to seem to have gained some momentum in some key swing states, But the race overall remains incredibly tight. Joining me to discuss this and other developments in the presidential race is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C.

Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, let's start with the Harris interview with Fox News host, Brett Baer. What are your top takeaways? I mean, this was kind of a remarkable interview. I was amazed that she did it because, for the most part, she sort of adopted Biden's, you know, a strategy of hiding away and letting the media do your work for you. It worked for Biden. I mean, of course, he did a few interviews, but he mostly just stayed on the campaign trail and avoided the media.

And even though he avoided them, they still kind of covered for him. I mean, conservatives pejoratively, you know, referred to it as hiding in a basement, right? But if you want to call it that, Gamel has tried the basement approach. Of course, she's on the campaign trail and doing a lot of events. So anyway, I thought it was interesting that, of all things to choose, she's here with Brett Baer, who can be known. I mean, he was really tough on Trump in that interview. And of course, Fox is right leaning in the Harris went in. So, you know, I think the benefit of that for her was that there was low expectations

and once people went into that interviewing, interview knowing why this is going to be brought. So I think the fact she didn't totally bomb it helped her. She took a lot of tough questions and at times really struggled to answer those questions. But when you see how tough the interviewer is being to her, you kind of have a little bit of sympathy. However, I don't think she won a lot of people over with this. And in fact, had a couple of very embarrassing viral moments. In particular, when Brett Baer is asking her, you know, you say you're going to turn the country around, but 79% in the poll they refer to, 79% of Americans say the country's headed on the wrong track. And you've been in office three and a half years.

So how they say it's on the wrong track. You say you're going to turn the page, but you're already in office. which is a point that Trump tried to make the last debate, I think, mostly unsuccessfully. But Brett really put it in her face. And she totally had no answer. I mean, it was painful to watch and how she kind of tried to laugh at all and said, well, Trump's been running for office. And Brett said, you're in office.

You're in the White House. What are you talking? She says, you and I both know what we're talking about here, Brett. And he said, I really don't know what you're talking about. I'm confused. And that was a really painful, awkward moment that really brought attention to the fact that, hey, they don't want to Trump's biggest arguments in the debate, which I think he really failed to get across in that debate, which is, how are you making all these big

promises if you're the VP? And everyone knows that Biden has lost a step, to say the least. And you could probably get, you know, things done since, you know, you always call it the Biden-Harris administration. So why haven't you? It's the best argument against an incumbent. If you're, if you were going to do all these changes, why didn't you already do it? That was what cost Trump, I think in big part. Of course, COVID really was what cost him. But it's what cost Trump when he ran for re-election against Biden. All of his things that he said he was going to do is, well, you've been in office four years and you haven't done it. Right. So that's what took away from that. I think that there's been some really interesting polling coming out. The interview, I think it was mostly a swing

and a miss. And it really just highlights, I mean, I admire it for trying it. And I think it was the right thing to do to try it. Maybe not Brett Baer. I mean, she kind of maybe overcompensated. for the lack of interviews by picking a hard one. She should have just went more mainstream, a little bit more favorable, I think. But let me, I want to, one more thing with the Fox News interview.

Britt Bear also pressed her on the border crisis, asked her directly, how many foreign nationals have crossed the border since you and Biden took office. He named dropped the Lake and Riley and a couple of other women who were murdered at the hands. of foreign nationals illegally in the U.S., released into the U.S. by the Biden administration,

and asked her directly, do you owe them an apology? And while she sort of hemmed and hawed and said, what a tragedy that is, et cetera, she wouldn't answer the question about whether she should apologize. She didn't answer the question about how many millions of foreign nationals have entered the country legally or illegally since she came into office. So I don't think she looked real good there either. No, I mean, and that's, you know, the Republican response to Harris's strength with women is trying to make the immigration an issue that, you know, hits home with women. This makes it a safety issue versus a cultural change issue, which a lot of social conservatives

tend to focus on. But if you make it a public safety issue, I think that is kind of smarter. And that's what Brett was getting at. And she has no answer on it. I mean, Brett also asked her, or, you know, actually, Charlamy and the God, it was a different interview. You know, he asked her, why did you let Joe Biden call you the Borders czar all these years or all that time if you weren't actually the borders are? And she had some kind of answer like, if I corrected people every time they said something about me,

you know, I'd be so busy. But I don't think that really passed muster. And the comments on that interview kind of seemed to reveal that. And Charlo Man is not conservative at all. So I think that Harris had a lot of momentum, getting the nomination, did very much. very well in the debate against Trump and has slowly been sliding since then. And these interviews are not helping. I think they're making it worse. But the problem is when she's not doing the interviews, she gets attacked for hiding in her, you know, Biden-style basement. And so she's in a tough place. And I think she's just trying to white-knuckle it to Election Day and hope that the momentum does not keep slipping and put Trump ahead. But I think right now, you know, Trump is in a really

good position. He's doing well in these swing states. He's got the momentum on his side. He's doing a lot of big, just major podcast interviews, Patrick Bad Davis, Flagrant, and others. These are appealing to younger voters. These are not your traditional news outlets, but they often get more views than those traditional news outlets because of the modern media landscape. And I mean, I've been, you know, making my way through these interviews. And he seems, in them, he seems very reasonable. He seems peaceful. He's not the angry Nazi, Nazi, fascist, tyrant that the left tries to characterize him as. I mean, it's not rally Trump at these things either. It's a very calm, soft-spoken Trump doing these. And so he's often kind of making jokes and

things. So I think these interviews are really helping Trump. They're Herney Harris, you know, and we've seen some polling, Dan, for I toss him back to you, that shows that Harris doesn't quite have the support from black voters that she may need in these swing states. Well, Casey, we're just about two and a half. weeks away from Election Day for our listeners. Early voting has started in your states, obviously vote. That's the most important thing. Thank you for joining us today, Casey.

Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.