Vice President Kamala Harris said during her first interview as the Democrat Party’s presidential nominee that she has no regrets misleading voters about Biden’s cognitive decline. Harris made the remarks during an interview that aired Thursday night on CNN when asked if she had any regrets about describing Biden as “extraordinarily strong” after his disastrous debate performance in late June that led to the Democratic Party later forcing him out of the race. “No, not at all,” Harris said. “Not at all.” The Trump campaign responded to Harris’ remarks by saying: “Kamala says she has NO REGRETS about covering up Crooked Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline — and LYING to the American people.” Tickets for “Am I Racist?” are on sale NOW! Buy here for a theater near you. WATCH: ? Kamala says she has NO REGRETS about covering up Crooked Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline — and LYING to the American people pic.twitter.com/FMkLhhSqWw — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 30, 2024

Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) attempted to explain away his misstatements and exaggerations about his time serving in the military by hiding behind a school shooting and claiming that his grammar was not the best. Walz joined Vice President Kamala Harris in her first official interview since becoming the Democratic Party’s de facto nominee — a pre-taped 18-minute spot with friendly CNN anchor Dana Bash — and Bash asked him about comments he’s made previously about “carrying weapons of war in war” despite never serving in a combat zone. “Tim Walz asked about lying and claiming he carried weapons in war said, ‘My grammar’s not always correct.’ Holy crap. He’s a moron. He’s had a month to come up with a response and this is it?!” radio host Clay Travis posted. WATCH: Tim Walz asked about lying and claiming he carried weapons in war said, “My grammar’s not always correct.” Holy crap. He’s a moron. He’s had a month to come up with a response and this is it?! pic.twitter.com/wAgPJx470o — Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) August 30, 2024 “The country is just starting to get to know you,” Bash said to Walz. “I want to ask you a question about how you’ve described your service in the National Guard. You said that you carried weapons ‘in war,’ but you have never deployed actually in a war zone. A campaign official said you misspoke. Did you?” Walz began by restating, as he has many times, how proud he is of his 24 years of service in the Army National Guard. “I’m equally proud of my service in a public school classroom, whether it’s Congress or the governor,” Walz continued, first suggesting that his false claims were just the result of his manner of speaking. “My record speaks for itself, but I think people are coming to get to know me, I speak like they do.” Tickets for “Am I Racist?” are on sale NOW! Buy here for a theater near you. He followed that with the suggestion that his exaggeration came about because he was “especially passionate” about making sure that kids did not get hurt. “I speak candidly, I wear my emotions on my sleeve. I speak especially passionately about our children being shot in schools and around guns, so I think people know me, they know who I am, they know where my heart is, and again, my record has been out there for over 40 years. It should speak for itself.” “The idea that you said that you were ‘in war,'” Bash pressed. “Did you misspeak, as the campaign has said?” Walz shook his head, replying, “Yeah, I said — we were talking about, in this case, this was after a school shooting, the ideas of carrying these weapons of war, and my wife, the English teacher, told me my grammar’s not always correct. But again, if it’s not this, it’s an attack on my children for showing love for me or it’s an attack on my dog. I’m not gonna do that, and the one thing I’ll never do is I’ll never demean another member’s service.” As news of Walz’s answer spread across X, however, critics pointed out the fact that Walz had referred to National Guard troops as “19-year-old cooks” who were not even prepared to handle the riots that tore apart his state after George Floyd’s death. Tim Walz just said (falsely) that he would never “demean another member’s service and I never have.” Here he is demeaning Minnesota National Guard members as “19 year old cooks.” pic.twitter.com/GgLWPQCeUO — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 30, 2024

Harris Fails To Explain Flip-Flops, Says She Has No Regrets About Biden In First Interview

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash Thursday for her first interview since launching her campaign. Harris answered over a dozen questions during the pre-recorded interview.  Harris’ running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz joined Harris for the interview, a move which many Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, criticized. Here’s a look at some of the statements Harris made during her interview. 1. ‘Diversity of Opinion’ The current vice president, a lifelong progressive Democrat, sought to appeal to moderate voters, even telling Bash she would appoint a Republican to her cabinet in the interest of “diversity of opinion.”  In an exclusive interview with CNN's Dana Bash, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said she would be open to putting a Republican in her cabinet. The full interview will air at 9 p.m. ET Thursday on CNN's "The First Interview: Harris & Walz, A CNN Exclusive."… pic.twitter.com/9nRzSA7RYb— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 29, 2024 “I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion,” Harris said.  Harris’ record, however, indicates her invitation for diverse options is limited.  While Harris was serving as California attorney general in 2016, California investigators searched pro-life activist David Daleiden’s home. Daleiden had recorded undercover video of Planned Parenthood.  “The fact that Ms. Harris is seizing private property of a pro-life California activist who has exposed horrific practices conducted by Planned Parenthood … is a conflict of interest and abuse of government power,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, said at the time.  Harris has also been accused of targeting conservative organizations because under her leadership as attorney general, California required organizations receiving donations to “file copies of their federal IRS Form 990 tax forms,” according to America First Legal.  “These forms include a list of all donors who contributed at least $5,000 to the charity in a given year,” the legal group explains. But, in 2021, the Supreme Court held in the case of Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta that mandatory disclosures were a violation of the First Amendment.  America First Legal says it believes that Harris may have “sought donor information about her political enemies without complying with federal law designed to protect donor privacy.”  2. Immigration and Southern Border President Joe Biden tasked Harris in the third month of his presidency with “leading the administration’s diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras,” according to a White House fact sheet.  But as Bash pointed out during her interview with Harris, a historic number of illegal aliens have arrived on America’s southern border under the Biden-Harris administration.  “Why did the Biden-Harris administration wait three and a half years to implement sweeping asylum restrictions?” Bash asked, referencing Biden’s executive order giving him authority to close the border when the seven-day average of daily border crossings between ports of entry exceeds 2,500.  Harris did not address Biden’s executive order but told Bash that “the number of immigrants coming from that region has actually reduced since we began that work,” referring to her work to address the root causes of immigration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.  Since March 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the Border Patrol has encountered over 1.9 million illegal aliens from El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras along the southern border, the same number of total illegal aliens the agency said it encountered during all four fiscal years of the Trump administration.  Between the start of fiscal year 2017 on Oct. 1, 2016, and the end of fiscal year 2020 on Sept. 30, 2020, which represents most of the time Donald Trump was president, the Border Patrol encountered a total of 1,952,654 illegal aliens from nations around the world at the southern border, according to CBP data. When combined, the number of encounters of illegal aliens from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras fell to 25,011 in June, a new low not seen since Trump’s last month in office.   3. Fracking Bash reminded Harris Thursday night that in 2019, Harris said “there is no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,”  “Do you still want to ban fracking?”  “No, and I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020 that I would not ban fracking,” Harris said. “As vice president I did not ban fracking, as president I will not ban fracking.”   During her debate with then Vice President Mike Pence in 2020, Harris twice said, “Joe Biden will not ban fracking.” 4. ‘Opportunity Economy’  The economy and inflation remain the top issues for voters in the 2024 election. If elected, Harris says she will begin “implementing my plan for what I call an opportunity economy” on day one. The Democratic candidate’s economic plan includes “what we’re going to do to bring down the cost of everyday goods, what we’re going to do to invest in America’s small businesses, what we’re going to do to invest in families, for example, extending the child tax credit to $6,000 for families for the first year of their child’s life,” Harris said. “There’s the work that we’re going to do that is about investing in the American family around affordable housing, a big issue in our country right now.”  But Harris’ economic plan has all the elements of “21st-century socialism,” according to Daniel Lacalle, economist and fund manager. In a recent column for The Daily Signal, Lacalle says Harris’ plan to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy will result in “more inflation, a hidden tax, for you.” “Following the Harris plan, the United States public debt will likely increase by $24 trillion in a decade,” according to Lacalle.  America’s national debt has increased over $7 trillion since the start of the Biden-Harris administration.  The post Fact-Checking Kamala Harris’ CNN Interview appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The reintroduction of Kamala Harris, her transition from a nationally disliked vice president to a transformational political savior, has been truly remarkable. All it took was Democratic desperation at the prospect of Joe Biden running in 2024. Popularity is difficult to replicate. If you lived through the campaigns of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama and the excitement and buzz surrounding their respective messages, then you understand that Kamala isn’t like them. You get the feeling that part of Kamala’s 'joy' tagline is a way to explain the laughter, though it is painfully obvious that the laughter does not come from a place of joy. Both Clinton and Obama had “hope” and the promises of change. Kamala has “joy” and the continuation of an unpopular presidency. The packed house at the Democratic National Convention earlier this month doesn’t change things; it’s like the extravagant birthday party for the kid nobody likes. Large crowds of partisans don’t necessarily equal broader excitement, though you are asked to believe otherwise. It’s like saying flannel makes you a man of the people. The redefinition of Kamala Harris is not an easy task. She has adopted politically unpopular positions in the past, from supporting open borders to ending private health insurance and shutting down drilling and fracking. She is known, weighed down by the policies and mistakes of the Biden administration: inflation, lagging wages and a slowing labor market, the Afghanistan withdrawal, illegal immigration, the wars in Ukraine and Israel. She has zero significant achievements as vice president. Part of the difficulty in moving forward from Biden’s failures is the fact that Kamala struggles to define herself apart from the Biden administration. The campaign’s official website still doesn’t address her positions on the issues. One reason for the silence is political calculation, the thought that the less she says about the issues, the more she can campaign on platitudes: diversity and liberalism, freedom, democracy, whatever. It took weeks for her to speak on the economy, and when she did it was proposals for more spending and modest tax cuts, with inflationary down-payment assistance (and she doesn’t know who will foot that bill), all while blaming businesses for inflation: “I know most businesses are creating jobs, contributing to our economy and playing by the rules, but some are not.” This leaves the public asking: What specifically is Kamala for, and what does support for Kamala mean? You might know the answers if you’re informed, if only based on her history. According to The Hill: “Based on her roll call voting record, Harris is the second-most liberal Democratic senator to serve in the Senate in the 21st century.” The average voter has much more difficulty in deciphering Kamala. They’ll have to vote to find out. Kamala must be sold, and the media will do the heavy lifting. Dare we state the obvious? Their favorable coverage of the Democratic nominee is a campaign for the Democratic nominee. The New York Times reports that “Joy Is Fueling Her Campaign.” Says who? The Kamala campaign. You’d think the media might want an objective source on that. Are we to believe the campaign is not fueled by the desire for power? The fuel — what allows the campaign to go forward — isn’t millions of dollars in donations by corporations and special interests? After her appearance at the DNC, the media gushed about Kamala’s choice of fashion: “A tan suit!” shrieked one New York Times writer. Axios is defending Kamala’s plan to stop "price-gouging" at grocery stores — her attempt to deflect the causes of the Biden-Harris inflation — and reminding its readers that “Harris’ economic proposals, broadly speaking, are meant to help middle-class Americans deal with a higher cost of living.” To that we ask: What policies?? Forget any analysis of why the middle-class is struggling or a discussion of the root causes of inflation. Voters don’t need to know. All the while, the media isn’t pushing back on Kamala’s refusal to sit for interviews or take questions. It seems Kamala’s campaign and the media have the same strategy: Keep the public uninformed, lest they find out just who Harris and Walz really are. But try as they might, her history will be known and the more radical parts of Kamala’s agenda will come out, no matter her attempts to moderate. Price controls are just the start. There is also her support for taxation on unrealized gains — the profits that a person has yet to realize. This plan “calls for the creation of an annual 25% minimum tax on the unrealized gains of individuals with income and assets that exceed $100 million.” This is a “radical departure” from the norm that subjects Americans to arbitrary valuations on arbitrary dates and imposes “double and triple taxation.” Once adopted, it is likely that it will apply to us all. Nobody will be safe; the government can’t constrain itself. Good luck with your 401(k) or your Schwab account or your home. Can Kamala shake her liberal past, the statements she made in the 2020 race (supporting a fracking ban, for starters), her responsibilities as VP for the border, and the failures of the Biden administration? Consider that Kamala doesn’t have the confidence to step out and establish who she is and what she believes. She lacks boldness — especially in comparison to her predecessors, evidenced by agreeing to only one debate despite the close race. But she also lacks something else: authenticity. The proposals she previously advocated are disclaimed today. The central message of her campaign — aside from running against Trump — is lacking, perhaps because she is insecure in her own skin, anxious to the point of needing untimely and inauthentic laughter to ease her tension. You get the feeling that part of Kamala’s “joy” tagline is a way to explain the laughter, though it is painfully obvious that the laughter does not come from a place of joy. The insecurity explains what might be her biggest mistake thus far: the choice of Tim Walz as vice president. She needs a follower because she isn’t a leader. Kamala, the reluctant choice of the Democratic establishment, couldn’t afford to be upstaged by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro or California Governor Gavin Newsom. Whatever their problems might be (and they are many), their intangibles far outweigh hers. Shapiro could have delivered Pennsylvania, but Walz is the true subordinate, one without aspirations beyond the vice presidency. He isn’t Kamala’s replacement or her competitor. Instead, Walz is happy to play the minstrel, the cartoon of a white rural Midwesterner sold to suburbanites (credit to Walter Kirn for that one, I think). He’ll serve as the phony soldier, both literally and figuratively, in the phoniest campaign in recent history. Editor's note: A version of this essay originally appeared at the Reactionary.

The first sit-down interview with Vice President Kamala Harris since she became the Democratic presidential candidate was underwhelming but likely didn't do any damage to her campaign. Harris had been lambasted by critics for going so long without an unscripted interview, but that changed on Thursday night when she faced Dana Bash.'Harris tried to avoid talking about race and gender during the interview.' Bash challenged Harris on her switching her position on banning fracking, and she responded by leaning on her "values" rather than actual policy positions. During the interview, she relied on repeating that her values had not changed in order to avoid answering why her policies had. Harris was also questioned on why the Biden administration had taken so long to address the immigration crisis, and she deflected the question into an attack on President Donald Trump over a failed bipartisan deal on immigration. Harris had Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the vice presidential candidate, at her side during the debate. Bash tried to get him to respond about lies he told about his military service and IVF treatments for his wife, but he similarly ignored the questions and tried to deflect. At one point, Bash asked Harris to talk about Trump's attacks on her identity as a black woman, and Harris refused to engage about the subject and laughed it off. Harris tried to avoid talking about race and gender during the interview and instead focused on her resume as vice president and former California attorney general. Bash also had Harris offer some details about the call that was made by President Joe Biden when he called her to let her know he was dropping out of the race and endorsing her for president. Harris very much used the time to praise Biden and show that she was going to keep defending his policies. Bash finished the interview by giving Walz a change to gush over his children and allowing Harris to talk about an iconic photo of her grandniece watching her speak at the Democratic National Convention. Democratic strategist David Axelrod said on CNN afterward that she didn't move the ball forward during the interview, but she also didn't do any harm to her campaign. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

On June 24, 2002, Kara Robinson was abducted by Richard Evonitz, who had already murdered at least three other girls — but she escaped 18 hours later, then helped police take the killer down. The post Kara Robinson: The 15-Year-Old Girl Who Escaped A Serial Killer, Then Helped Police Solve Three Of His Murders appeared first on All That's Interesting.

The Hill: Summer COVID Surge Threatens Return to 2020 Measures

Former President Donald Trump has said Kamala Harris is bad at many things, but he did offer a compliment to the vice president Thursday during a rally in Potterville, Michigan.

In a joint interview with running mate Tim Walz on Thursday with CNN's Dana Bash, Vice President Kamala Harris avoided addressing comments made by Donald Trump regarding her racial identity, swiftly dismissing the topic with a request to move on.