The Daily Signal - What We Learned During Harris’ CNN Interview, Trump Backing IVF, DHS Resuming Parole Program | Aug. 30

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: Democratic nominee for president Kamala Harris sat down for an interview with CNN and said her values have not changed.  Former President Donald Trump announces a major policy promise supporting IVF.  The Biden administration is unpausing an immigration program that was paused due to widespread fraud concerns.  Movie review of “Leo.”  Relevant Links https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/08/30/cnns-softball-interview-of-kamala-harris/ 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 lowdow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kamala Harris says her values have not changed. Do we learn anything new about the Democratic Party's nominee for president during her CNN interview? I'm Virginia Allen and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Friday, August 30th. It was her first interview since launching her campaign. So how did Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris do? And did CNN's Dana Bash ask the right questions? Back with us for the second day in a row to discuss is Daily Signal columnist Jarrett Stettman. Jared, thanks for being back with us. That's good to be back. Thank you very much. Well, we were both up a little bit late last night to cover that speech. And you wrote a column

covering CNN's interview with Kamala Harris. And you said the title of your article is CNN's softball interview of Kamala Harris. So let's start there. What made this a softball interview in your opinion, Jared? Yeah, I think there were in several cases a few tough questions. especially about the border and some of Harris' flip-fopping. But they really didn't come with a lot of follow-up. And I think that was one of the biggest issues here. I mean, we had this segment where Harris talked about her values hadn't been changing, but there was no digging into what exactly her values really were.

And the end of the segment, which this whole thing was just about 26, 27 minutes, was filled with fluff, was filled with questions about when, when Biden stepped down, how she was responding about what enchanted her and her vice presidential nominee walls at the convention, really meaningless things, given the fact that it had been a month and a half since she had actually done an interview when she launched this campaign. I mean, that's not good enough when you consider that this is the only interview she's done, the entire campaign. I think that that was something that stood out, that that would have been very acceptable and normal if this was maybe her 10th interview,

but it was interesting to see that they took that much time for those conversations with this being her first. And one of the things that you and I had talked about yesterday, Jared, was that we wanted to see Bash specifically ask Harris, why did it take so long to sit down for an interview? And will you commit to doing more of these sit down interviews on a regular basis until the election? That question obviously was not asked,

So then what do you think the toughest question was that Bash did ask Harris? She did ask her specifically about fracking and her flip-flopping on this issue. Back in 2019, she said that on her first day in office, she would ban fracking. Since then, she's seemingly changed. Bash did actually ask her about this, but that's how we ended up in Harris giving this sort of meandering word salad answer, saying that, well, she's hitting certain, metrics and that she doesn't support it now, but her fundamental values haven't changed. Bash did follow up with a little bit of a pushback saying, well, what exactly did you see that made you change?

And she didn't answer. She simply said that we are good on the climate change thing. We're hitting our goals. And that this is now what she stands for, which is no fracking. But again, it makes one wonder what exactly Harris stands for. I mean, what are her values and principles? I mean, she didn't fully explain what it is, what scientific measure, what philosophical change made her flip from wanting to ban fracking to suddenly now being okay with it. We never got those answers.

Yeah, well, and it wasn't just fracking. I know Bash also, she questioned her on her support in 2019 during a debate. She had raised her hand in saying she would support decriminalizing the southern border, crossing the southern border illegally. and when Bachelorette pressed her, hey, have you changed your policies on that? Harris said, well, there should be consequences for crossing the border, but didn't exactly clarify what those consequences should be, in her opinion. After last night, do you think that the American people have a clearer sense of Harris's policy positions? Not really. Not at all.

And I think she actually has very few official positions. I mean, her website still is devoid of any kind of policies. And I think that just pressing her on a few of these flip-ops is one thing. But we still haven't had a clear picture of what exactly her intentions are when she becomes present. I mean, you can't just say, well, I stand for timeless values without defending what those values actually are. And, you know, I do wonder, you know, it took a month and a half for us to get to this actual point. Are we going to have to wait another month and a half before we get questions asked of this candidate who was dropped into a race at the very, last second, if anything, she should be answering more questions because this is a candidate who

never really stood before voters in a primary. Yeah, well, fortunately, we have a debate coming up on September 10th that I think will hopefully clarify some of these questions for the American people, but we'll have to wait and see. Now, of course, Walls was also sitting next to Kamala Harris during this interview, Governor Tim Walls. And he answered maybe roughly about four questions compared to maybe over a dozen that Harris answered. Did we learn anything new about Walls last night? Not much. It was very awkward seeing him sit there almost like a chaperone during this whole thing.

There were some questions about, I think, some of his, you could say, misstatements. At least that's what he would call him about the fact that he said that he had deployed as a veteran. He was asked about these, but never really answered the question. In fact, made an excuse that he has a poor grammar. That's the reason why for basically half a decade he deceived many people, including voters, about his military record and used that as a way to attack the Second Amendment. So I don't think that any questions were really answered. He gave mostly non-answers to these very serious question about whether he's been truthful about his background and his record.

So he didn't really do much during this entire interview, and what he did, I think, was mostly ineffective. Jared, thank you for your time. Encourage all of our listeners, check out today's show notes if you want to read Jared's full column on Kamala Harris's interview with CNN. Jared, thanks for being with us. Have a great weekend. Thank you very much. During a rally yesterday, President Donald Trump announced a major policy promise supporting in vitro fertilization or IVF. I'm announcing today in a major statement that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for

or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for all costs associated with IVF treatment, fertilization for women, IVF treatment, because we want more babies to put it very nicely. As the Cleveland Clinic explains, IVF is the process of retrieving eggs from a woman's ovaries and then manually combining them with sperm in a lab for fertilization. Because many in the pro-life movement hold to the view that life begins at conception, the process of IVF is concerning because not all of those fertilized eggs or embryos are given the chance to develop. And following Trump's announcement, pro-life activists and live action founder Lila Rose, Rod on X, only 7% of embryos created via IVF will result in a live birth. The remaining

93% are frozen indefinitely, miscarried, or aborted. Over 1 million human embryos are already frozen from these IVF procedures. During an NBC interview yesterday, Trump also said that he does not support Florida's six-week abortion ban bill. In Florida, the state that you are a resident of, there's an abortion-related amendment on the ballot to overturn the six-week ban in Florida. How are you going to vote on that? Well, I think the six week is too short. It has to be more time. And so that's, and I've told them that I want more weeks. So you'll vote in favor of the amendment? I'm voting that I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks. A baby's heartbeat is beating at six weeks. So these laws are often referred to as heartbeat bills. On Thursday night, the Trump campaign clarified that the former president has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida.

The Biden administration has unpause. an immigration program that was paused earlier this month due to widespread fraud concerns. Earlier this month, we learned that the Biden administration had paused the program that granted advanced travel authorization for up to 30,000 individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to come to the United States every month and seek parole. But the Department of Homeland Security paused the program out of an abundance of caution after an internal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services report unearthed large amounts of fraud within applications. As part of the program, nationals from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, and Nicaragua have a sponsor here in the U.S. in order to qualify for the program.

The Conservative Immigration Group Federation for American Immigration Reform found that among more than 100,000 forms, those forms appear to have been filled out by 3,218 sponsors. That means that one sponsor was filling out about 20 of those forms or more. The investigation found the use of fake social security numbers, including social security numbers of deceased individuals, and the use of false phone numbers. But yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security said that the program is resuming. DHS says that they have strengthened the process to remember,

remove abuse. In a statement, DHS says together with our existing rigorous vetting of potential beneficiaries seeking you travel to the United States, these new procedures for supporters have strengthened the integrity of these processes and will help to protect against exploitation of beneficiaries. Well, it's the eve of a three-day weekend, so hopefully you all have plans to relax, spend a little bit of time with your family, and maybe watch a family-friendly movie on late. day. It's a good weekend for it. So here with us to talk about a good family-friendly movie recommendation is Heritage Foundation Social Media Manager. Christian last fall. Christian, thanks for being back with us once again to share a movie review. Thanks for having me back. So this movie that you recommended is called

Leo. I have not seen it, but I just watched the trailer and I'm instantly already in love with it. Give us the premise here. Absolutely. Yeah. So when you asked me if I had a movie to review, immediately my brain goes towards something that not only would be wholesome and good for families to watch, but something that doesn't have a political agenda inserted in there. It's rare these days. It is very rare. And I was kind of expecting it because it's available for streaming on Netflix. I was expecting that it would have some kind of underlying agenda.

And it didn't have any that you wouldn't want to be in there. It was actually a very wholesome movie. And the premise of it is a lizard and a turtle. And they have been in this case in a classroom for many, any years. The turtle less time than the lizard. They come to lizard and the turtle learned that the average life expectancy for the specific kind of lizard that he is, Leo is, is about 76 years and he comes to learn that he's 75. So he quickly becomes depressed and thinking about all the things that he's missed out on life, on, in life, because he's been in this case in a

classroom the whole time. Well, wouldn't you know it? The substitute teacher that comes in begins to assign each of the students with taking one of the pets home every weekend. And so he gets an opportunity to leave the case. And he originally plans on running away and escaping from one of the kids' bedrooms. And when he makes it to the first girl's bedroom that takes him home that weekend, he ends up talking. And I won't spoil how that ends up happening. But he ends up saying something out loud in a language, English, that the human can understand. So there's the freak out, classic figure. I'm like, you can talk. But as the movie goes on, each time the students bring him home, he gets an opportunity to teach them a valuable lesson with his 75 years of life experience,

seeing classroom after classroom of student come in and actually helps to better the lives of the students. And I'll only say that much. There's a lot of comedy intertwined in there and other, other things that make it a really enjoyable and funny movie to watch, but I won't spoil any more of it. But if you have a long weekend and one evening is free, I would recommend watching Leo. It's very, very sweet. And you don't have to worry about some left-wing agenda being snuck in there of a transgender child or anything of the sort. Good wholesome fun. Good wholesome fun.

Few and far between these days. And Adam Sandler, voices, Leo, big name obviously in there. A lot of great talent in this movie. It's available for streaming on Netflix. It's rated PG. Go ahead. Look up the trailer because it's just a riot already, I can tell. I'm like, this is a good one.

This is a very good one. So, Christian, thank you as we heading to our three-day weekend for a great movie recommendation. Thank you. Well, with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks for joining us here for the Daily Signal's top news on this Friday before a three-day weekend. We hope you all have an excellent long weekend, maybe get a little bit of time away with family, with friends.

On Monday, there will be no new shows out from the Daily Signal podcast, but we will be back with you on Tuesday when the Daily Signal. Michael's Tyler O'Neill is sitting down with Neil Howe. They discuss his new book, The Fourth Turning, is here. Make sure to catch that conversation. Also, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on new shows from the Daily Signal podcast. Have a fantastic Labor Day. We'll see you Tuesday. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Louie and Katrina Trinko. Hosts are Virginia Allen, Brian Gotson, Tyler O'Neill and Elizabeth Mitchell. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geine,

John Pop, and Joseph von Spakovsky. To learn more or support our work, please visit DailySignal.com.