The Daily Signal - Questions Harris Must Answer, Israel Takes Out Militants in West Bank, Journalists Found Guilty of Sedition | Aug. 29

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: Democratic nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris will sit down for an interview with CNN. Did Harris ever work at McDonalds?  But 150 students in Massachusetts have been told there is no space for them on the county’s buses as the illegal alien population increases.  Israel’s Military operation in the West Bank continues. Two Hong Kong journalists have been found guilty of sedition.  Relevant Links Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/ Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription   Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcasts Sign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is sitting down for an interview with CNN tonight, the first interview since she launched her campaign. I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the DailySigil Top News for Thursday, August 29th. Democratic nominee and current vice president Kamala Harris is sitting down for an interview with CNN tonight. The pre-recorded interview will air at 9 p.m. Eastern, and Harris, though, is not doing this interview alone. Her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, will be beside her. This is Harris' first interview since she launched her campaign. So what are the big things to watch for tonight? And what questions should CNN's Dana Bash be asking both Harris and Walls?

The Daily Signals columnist, Jared Stetman, joins us now to discuss. Jared, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. So, Jared, what should the first question be out of Dana Bash's mouth tonight? I think the first question should be, why is this the first interview you've done since announcing you wanted to become present? I mean, it's been now over a month. Most candidates who are around the campaign trail are doing interviews after interviews. I mean, we've seen this with their competitor.

Donald Trump was even done the things like Go on X and go on basically a podcast-style show, among many other interviews. If she really does want to be president in the United States, why so long? Why stay away from the press that has mostly been very fawning over her? I agree. And I think I would love to see Dana Bash ask her, will you commit to doing at least one interview a week until the election. I feel like that's fair. But Jared, what are the top three things that you're going to be watching for specifically tonight?

Yeah, I think a major thing is, will this be a vibes interview, a one where she's getting a lot of softball questions, or is she going to be getting real questions about her policy positions? I mean, that's the most important thing. I mean, this has been a vibes-based election for Harris. There's a lot of answers that the public deserves about where she's standing. on a lot of issues. She's certainly changed a lot, even in just four years. You know, does she stand, still stand for Medicare for all? Is she still on board with that? Is she still support banning fracking?

If not, why? I think it will be determined during this interview whether or not they're going to push her to actually get real policy answers and not just, not just yuck it up. Yeah. Well, former President Donald Trump has been sounding off as well on social media about this interview this morning. On true social, the interview should not have tampon Tim, referring to Governor Tim Walls, present to help with the inevitable Kamala stumbles. And under no circumstances should the transcript be allowed to be changed in any way, shape, or form. Jared, what do you make of walls being present during this interview? We know what Trump thinks, but what do you think? It is, it was a little humorous to me. It's almost like, you know, this new trend where Zoomers bring in their parents to their first inner job interview. It's not entirely crazy to have a president and the vice presidential candidate be together for an interview. But usually that's during the campaign with a lot of other direct interviews involved. The fact that this is her first interview and that she's brought her vice presidential candidate alongside her makes one wonder,

whether or not she simply is afraid or unwilling to actually do tough one-on-one interviews, which she hasn't done at all. Yeah. Let's talk just for a second about the stakes tonight. There is a new poll out post-DNC. This is a USA Today Suffolk University poll. It just came out this morning. And it reports that Harris is now leading Trump in the polls 48 to 43.

We're 67 days out from the election. How important are interviews like the one that Harris, is doing with CNN tonight for helping those undecided voters determine who they're going to back in November? Well, one way or another, however this actually changes the race, I think it is very important for the American people to have answers from those who wish to be president of the United States. I mean, if we do have this sort of democratic way of electing our presidents, the American people need to know what policies are going to be coming from the White House, whether that's Trump or whether that's Harris. And so, you know, I think this race is.

extremely close and a lot of swing states that are very much in play. And I do hope in the next few months we actually get a genuine debate on the issues, which are most important. This shouldn't just be about personalities. This has to be about the actual policies that these administrations have in four years that we're going to have to have this person as president. So I think that's extremely important. This interview hopefully begins, hopefully a series of interviews and real questions about what those policies will be coming from the Harris administration. if that comes to pass. Well, again, the interview is airing tonight at 9 p.m. on CNN.

Jared Stetman, David's little columnist. Thank you, Jared, for your time. Really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Well, another question that CNN's Dana Bass should consider asking Harris tonight is, did you ever work at McDonald's? During an appearance on the Drew Barrymore show, Harris said that she once worked at McDonald's, Barrymore's sidekick on that show, Ross Matthews,

ask Harris about this. This was back in April. Take a listen. I heard a rumor that you worked at McDonald's. Is this true? I did. Yes, I didn't know that about you. I was in school. Me too. I worked registered, drive-thru and grill. I was known as a triple threat, okay? Just for the record. I did fries. Just the fries? I did fries. I did fries. And then I did the cashier. But the controversy is that Harris never mentioned her job working at McDonald's in her books. nor is it mentioned in public records. She reportedly worked there after her freshman year of college,

but the Washington Free Beacon reports that it's absent from a job application and resume that she submitted a year after she graduated from college. Her work at McDonald's was never mentioned on the campaign trail in California, but she did speak about it when she ran for president back in 2019. The Free Beacon puts it well when they write that it is possible that Harris did indeed work at McDonald's in the early 1980s, but the absence of that detail in public records and her campaign's coyness and refusal to provide any further details raises questions about what is now a foundational narrative. In another piece of Burger Joint News, Shake Shack is shutting down six California locations

after the state raised its minimum wage to $20 an hour. It's back to school time, and that means those big yellow school. buses are getting back on the roads. But 150 students in Massachusetts have been told that there's not space for them on the county's buses, and they have to find an alternative way to school. Stoughton Public Schools in Stoughton, Massachusetts, it's about 20 miles south of Boston. The school system sent a letter to families earlier this month telling them, unfortunately, for the upcoming 2024 through 2025 school year, 150 secondary students who signed up to ride a bus were not able to be placed on a bus.

The letter goes on to explain that while these 150 students have to find another way to get to school, the district is required to provide transportation to students living in hotels or shelters. Many of those students are illegal aliens. Superintendent Joseph Beda writes, The district has two buses for students living in hotels and shelters. We are required to provide transportation for these students. These two buses are in addition to the students. are in addition to the 13 buses for the students not in hotels slash shelters.

We are utilizing funding the state provides to the district to buss the students living in hotels and shelters. Well, the funding for the two buses for those hotel and shelter students does not come out of the district's operational budget. And the superintendent tells families that it is inaccurate to suggest that these children receiving busing is the reason that yours did not. If we were not receiving the funding, according to the superintendent from the state for the students living in hotels and shelters, we would not be able to have these two additional buses. But Fox News reports that Stoughton Town Manager Thomas Coulter wrote a letter to the governor of Massachusetts back in February, in which it was stated that at least 237 migrant families had moved into their community, which is having a, quote, adverse impact related to the budget. economic development, and the safety of our community. Israel's military operation in the West Bank continues. Israeli officials say that its military has killed another five West Bank militants,

and specifically, the IDF reports to have eliminated a senior commander of a Hamas-Aid group. Israel began targeted operations in the West Bank earlier this week, and reports to have killed 16 people, nearly all of whom, are militants. Israel says it is carrying out the raids to prevent future attacks. The West Bank does pose a serious threat to Israel because, as the Washington Free Beacon reports, Iran has spent years smuggling weapons into the West Bank. Because of this, there are concerns that radical Islamic terror groups could launch large-scale attacks against Israel right from the West Bank. Since October 7, terrorist groups operating out of the West Bank have launched hundreds of

attacks on Israel already. As Israeli forces do continue to seek to dismantle Hamas within Gaza, there was a little bit of good news this week. A hostage was rescued from within the network of Hamas tunnels. On Tuesday, 52-year-old, Quad-Faran al-Qaidi became the first hostage to have been rescued alive from the Hamas tunnels. Al-Qadi is reported to have lost a lot of weight, but overall is in good health. He's now back in Israel with his family. And in a little bit more international news today, two Hong Kong journalists have been found guilty of sedition. The journalists worked at a pro-democracy news site called Stand News.

The outlet was one of the last in the region to be critical of the Chinese Communist Party. In 2019, there were protests pushing back on China's totalitarianism in Hong Kong. And since then, China has further cracked down on free speech in China. The former editor-in-chief of Stan News, Chung Pukin, said during his trial last year, we didn't have a hidden agenda or any other goals that you couldn't see. We saw very important events with a lot of public interest. We only wanted to document them. Their conviction came about three years after police raided the news website's office

and seized journalist materials and arrested staff members. According to the Associated Press, the journalists were charged under a colonial air sedition law used increasingly to crush dissidents. They face up to two years in prison and a fine of $5,000 Hong Kong dollars, that's about $640 U.S. dollars for first offense. And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks for joining us here on the Daily Signal podcast. Catch our interview edition tomorrow morning. I'm going to be sitting down with the Heritage Foundation's Diana Furch got Roth to discuss China's energy policies. And and how exactly its development of, quote-unquote, clean energy is affecting the United States

and why that clean energy might actually be pretty dirty. Catch that conversation tomorrow morning, and we will also be back with you for top news tomorrow afternoon. Heads up, we will not have any shows on Monday, as it is Labor Day. Hope you all get a little bit of time off, maybe enjoy some time with family. In the meantime, hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on new shows from the Daily Signal podcast. And if you would, leave us a five-star reading and review. We love hearing your feedback. Have a great rest of your Thursday.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow morning. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Blewey and Katrina Trinko. Hosts are Virginia Allen, Brian Gottstein, Tyler O'Neill, and Elizabeth Mitchell. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, John Pop, and Joseph Von Spakovsky. To learn more or support our work, please visit dailysignal.com.