THE WASHINGTON STAND—Presidential debates have often been compared to professional wrestling matches, but the ABC News debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris more closely resembled a handicap match, with Trump taking on three opponents at once: Harris and both moderators. As “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir and ABC News Live “Prime” anchor Linsey Davis regularly fact-checked Trump in real time, they allowed Harris to get by with numerous evasions and false statements on such issues as late-term abortions, post-birth executions, government pregnancy monitors, the economy, and haggard canards about “very fine people” at Charlottesville. Here are a few of Kamala Harris’s misstatements that the ABC News moderators let her get away with. 1. Late-term abortion is a myth? Harris attempted to deny Trump’s charge that the Democratic Party supports late-term abortion by denying such abortions take place. “Nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion,” Harris dodged. In reality, 21 states allow abortion until birth: Six states have no legal limit protecting unborn children, and the rest allow abortion after the point of viability thanks to a vague and expansive “health of the mother” exception. Late-term abortions are well-documented. In 2022, pro-life advocates found the remains of five babies whom abortionist Cesare Santangelo aborted late in their term or possibly after birth at the Washington Surgi-Clinic in Washington, D.C. The Biden-Harris Justice Department advised the District of Columbia to destroy the evidence. “In 2013, New Mexico abortionist Shelley Sella faced medical board sanctions after she committed an abortion on a child at 35 weeks,” reports Carole Novielli of Live Action. “In 2003, abortionist Charles Rossmann gave abortion pills to a woman who was past 30 weeks.” Southwestern Women’s Options in Albuquerque’s website advertised that “abortion services are available through 32 weeks. Exceptions after 32 weeks are provided on a case-by-case basis.” A 1981 Philadelphia Inquirer article documented that, in abortion facilities, “unintended live births are literally an everyday occurrence,” but they are “hushed up” instead of treated as “a problem to be solved.” More than 56,000 abortions took place after 21 weeks, according to the most recent CDC report. 2. Abortions after birth don’t happen? The issue of infanticide cropped up during the debate, as Trump cited comments made by a former Virginia governor about allowing babies born alive during birth to die — a position Trump called “execution after birth.” Davis responded to Trump’s comments on abortion by saying, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.” It is true that during a 2019 interview, then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, said, if a baby is born alive during a botched abortion, “I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother” about the child’s future. His comment was not an outlier. In 2013, a lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, Alisa Lapolt Snow, testified before the Florida House of Representatives that even if a baby is alive, breathing on a table and moving, “We believe that any decision that’s made” about administering treatment to the newborn “should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician. … That decision should be between the patient and the health care provider.” Whistleblowers have noted abortionists regularly allowed children to be born alive, then die by neglect. Jill Stanek, who served as a nurse at Christ Hospital in the Chicago area, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020: In the event a baby was aborted alive, he or she received no medical assessments or care but was only given what my hospital called ‘comfort care’ — made comfortable, as Governor Northam indicated. One night, a nursing co-worker was transporting a baby who had been aborted because he had Down syndrome to our Soiled Utility Room to die – because that’s where survivors were taken. I could not bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone, so I rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived. He was 21 to 22 weeks old, weighed about 1/2 pound, and was about the size of my hand. Some accounts are more gruesome. Multiple employees accused “Texas Gosnell” abortionist Douglas Karpen of twisting the heads off live babies after birth.  Yet the Democratic ticket has not lifted a finger to require infant lives be saved. In 2019, then-Sen. Harris voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which requires abortionists to provide potentially lifesaving care to babies born during botched abortions. There is no federal requirement to provide medical care to an infant born during an abortion. As governor of Minnesota, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz signed a bill which removed a requirement that abortionists “preserve the life and health of the born alive infant.” Although only eight states currently require that the data be reported, official statistics show 277 babies were born alive during abortions. Pro-life advocates Gianna Jessen and Melissa Ohden survived botched abortions. Only eight states require abortionists to report infants born alive during a botched abortion (Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas.). Two states—Walz’s Minnesota and Gretchen Whitmer’s Michigan—repealed those requirements. Abortionists are not known as for being conscientious about reporting their own botched abortions. Numerous Democratic lawmakers have introduced bills to legalize “perinatal death,” which an official analysis confirmed would bring about the “unintended” legalization of infanticide. Summing up the evidence, Family Research Council’s Mary Szoch said that the Democratic Party’s “attack on life begins at fertilization, but it continues throughout the entirety of pregnancy and does not even stop after the baby is born. Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz have actively worked to ensure that babies born alive following abortions do not receive the help that they desperately need.” 3. Pro-life protections prevent miscarriage care? Harris repeated the lie that state pro-life protections prevent doctors from treating women suffering from miscarriages. Harris said she had spoken to women “being denied care in an emergency room, because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail.” No pro-life law in the nation prohibits doctors from caring for miscarriages. Even Project 2025, which Harris repeatedly invoked as extreme, states, “Miscarriage management or standard ectopic pregnancy treatments should never be conflated with abortion.” Pro-life advocates blame confusion created by the abortion industry with causing doctors to deny women treatment. To help women’s health, the abortion industry should stop promoting that lie, they say. 4. Donald Trump would have the government monitor pregnancies and miscarriages? Harris asserted that Trump would preside over the installation of a Big Brother-style surveillance of every pregnancy in America. “In his Project 2025 there would be a national abortion—a monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages,” Harris said, without any moderator’s intervention. This statement had been repeated at the Democratic National Convention, and the Harris-Walz campaign has claimed in TV spots that Trump has endorsed “requiring the government to monitor women’s pregnancies.”  But Project 2025—which is not Trump’s platform—contains no such provision. Presumably, Harris is wrenching out of context its reasonable proposal that states report abortion statistics accurately. The Biden administration’s most recent annual report on abortion—known as the Abortion Surveillance—excludes statistics from four states including the most populous state: California, Maryland, New Hampshire, and New Jersey. Project 2025 calls on the federal government “to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.” The government would “ensure that [state] statistics are separated by category: spontaneous miscarriage; treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy); stillbirths; and induced abortion.” That’s a far cry from a “government monitor” peeping in on women’s ultrasounds. Even legacy media fact-checkers have denied this claim. FactCheck.org noted curtly, “Trump has not made such a proposal.” Reuters reported, “Fact Check: Project 2025 did not propose a ‘period passport’ for women.” Harris’s allegation “significantly overstates the nature of the monitoring called for in Project 2025,” reports USA Today. 5. National abortion ban? “If Donald Trump were to be reelected, he will sign a national abortion ban,” claimed Harris. Trump removed the Republican Party platform’s historic commitment to passing a Human Life Amendment, aspirational as it was, and has repeatedly said he opposes any further national legislation on the issue. “It’s the vote of the people now,” Trump said at the debate. 6. Trump called for a ‘bloodbath’? In one of the more egregious statements allowed to slip into public consciousness without any pushback, Harris falsely asserted that “Donald Trump the candidate has said in this election there will be a bloodbath, if the outcome of this election is not to his liking.” Trump used the economic term “bloodbath” while contrasting his tariff policy with the Biden-Harris administration’s pro-China electric vehicle policy during a March rally near Dayton, Ohio. “We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected. Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole” industry, he said. As this author noted at The Washington Stand: The term ‘bloodbath’ is regularly used in the financial sector to describe an industrial contraction. The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists one of the definitions of ‘bloodbath’ as ‘a major economic disaster.’ … Democratic campaign operatives pounced on Trump’s use of the term ‘bloodbath’ to insinuate he wanted to foment a blood-drenched revolution if he lost the election. … The [then-]Biden campaign promptly wrenched the president’s remarks out of context to create a digital campaign ad titled ‘Bloodbath,’ which recycles other erroneous statements, such as falsely claiming Trump praised rioters at the Charlottesville and Jan. 6 D.C. riots. ABC News moderators let the Democrat’s baseless allegation of revolutionary violence go unchecked. 7. Are Americans better off today than they were four years ago? Muir opened the debate by asking Harris, “Do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?” Harris responded, “So, I was raised as a middle-class kid” and spoke for two minutes about her economic plans, ignoring the question completely. Unlike numerous questions in which the moderators demanded an answer of Trump, Muir asked no follow-up of Harris. Harris boasts of being the tie-breaking votes for the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act, which economists credit with setting off historically high inflation rates that exceeded 9%. The cost of a gallon of gasoline more than doubled during the Biden-Harris administration and is still $1.29 higher than the day Trump left office. Staples such as groceries have risen nearly 20%, and new houses have more than doubled on her watch. 8. Project 2025 is Trump’s plan? Harris continually attempted to tie Trump to Project 2025, a project of The Heritage Foundation, which the former president has repeatedly disparaged. Trump replied, “I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” referring to its commonsense conservative proposals as “out there.” “I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it,” he added. The plan’s authors have acknowledged Trump had nothing to do with their conservative vision for the next four years. “Project 2025 is not affiliated with any candidate, and no candidate was involved with the drafting of the Mandate for Leadership, which was published by Heritage in April 2023,” Noah Weinrich, a spokesperson for Project 2025, told CNN. 9. Trump praised neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Harris repeated misinformation that, as president, Trump praised neo-Nazis and white supremacists at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. “Let’s remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing anti-Semitic hate, and what did the president then at the time say? There were ‘fine people’ on each side,” Harris claimed. In reality, Trump said, “You had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.” But Trump promptly stated, “And I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. … There were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. … They had some rough, bad people — Neo-Nazis, white nationalists.” “You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name,” because of Lee’s role as military leader of the Confederacy. But many Founding Fathers were also slaveowners. “Are we gonna take down statues of George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson?” he asked. “You’re changing history. You’re changing culture.” Trump also pointed out the presence of Antifa protesters there to cheer on the tearing down of America’s historical monuments, who—unlike those opposed to tearing down U.S. history, did not have a permit to meet. “Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with the black outfits, and with the helmets, and the baseball bats. You got a lot of bad people in the other group, too.” Even Snopes.com ran an article titled, “No, Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists ‘Very Fine People.’”  10. Trump is above the law? Harris attempted to raise fears that Trump would break the law with impunity in a second term. “The United States Supreme Court recently ruled that the former president would essentially be immune from any misconduct if he were to enter the White House again,” said Harris, while claiming Trump would weaponize government against his political enemies in a second term. “The [p]resident enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the [p]resident does is official,” stated the court ruling, written by Chief Justice John Roberts. “The [p]resident is not above the law.” Originally published by The Washington Stand. The post The 10 Harris Lies Moderators Let Slide at the ABC Debate appeared first on The Daily Signal.

THE DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—The Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped nearly half of pending obstruction charges against Jan. 6 defendants since the Supreme Court issued a major ruling in June, according to recent data. The Supreme Court ruled in June that in charging Jan. 6 defendants, the DOJ had interpreted too broadly a statute that carries up to 20 years in prison for anyone who corruptly “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding.” Since the Fischer v. United States ruling, around 60 of 126 defendants had the pending obstruction charges dropped, DOJ data from Sept. 6 shows. The DOJ is continuing to pursue charges for 13 defendants with pending charges and still assessing its course of action for the remaining defendants.  Latest DOJ stats on impact of Fischer (18 USC 1512c2, obstruction of official proceeding):* of 126 cases pre-sentence, charge dropped in ~60; being pursued in 13; under review in ~53.* of 133 cases post-sentence, charge dropped in ~40, still under review in remainder. pic.twitter.com/u4NsqhQOXW— Roger Parloff (@rparloff) September 9, 2024 Of the 133 defendants whose cases had already been adjudicated when the Fischer ruling was released, the DOJ “does not oppose dismissal or vacatur of the charge in approximately 40 cases,” though it is still assessing the remaining cases, according to the data. “There are zero cases where a defendant was charged only for violating 18 U.S.C. § 1512,” the DOJ noted. “In other words, even if the government foregoes this charge, every charged defendant will continue to face exposure to other criminal charges.” The Supreme Court held that the government must “establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects” or “other things used in the proceeding” in order to prove a violation of the obstruction statute. In a concurring opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested prosecutors could move forward with charges if they “involved the impairment (or the attempted impairment) of the availability or integrity of things used during the January 6 proceeding.” Originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation The post Biden DOJ Dropped Nearly Half Of Pending Obstruction Charges for Jan. 6 Defendants After Supreme Court Ruling appeared first on The Daily Signal.

ABC News Sucks at Fact-Checking

September 11th

  It's becoming more difficult to tell the difference between America and the third-world public toilets that woke leaders are replicating here, at home. You'd think our bloviating elitists have realized they've pushed themselves into a corner where they have to pick which woke cause is more important to them: human rights or being "culturally enriched." But they're the elite, after all, silly! They don't need to deal with the implications of their self-important Marxist preaching has caused for the rest of us commoners. That's our problem now. In this episode of "Woke of the Weak," we take a look at how limousine liberals are destroying our nation.     

ABC hosts and debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis asked at least 27 questions of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris but not a single one touched on freedom of speech or censorship. Governments across the globe, including Brazil, Canada, the European Union and the United Kingdom have shown their disgust for freedom of speech in recent weeks. Those countries have made concerted efforts to silence their citizens, imprison dissenters and control the flow of information, joining the likes of more well-known censorship regimes in Australia, Venezuela, China and North Korea. In a recent letter, Mark Zuckerberg claimed he regrets following the Biden-Harris administration’s instructions for Meta to censor Americans which just further revealed that the same global censorship is rapidly seeping into American politics. Despite all this, the obviously biased ABC moderators passed over the issue dozens of times.  The absence of questions related to censorship was particularly egregious considering that one candidate has been censored across nearly every platform and the other has helped lead an administration that has actively and repeatedly promoted censorship. Research conducted by MRC Free Speech America, The Washington Examiner Investigative Reporter Gabe Kaminsky and The Twitter Files paints a damning picture of the Biden-Harris administration’s expansive censorship operations which can be found in at least nine major administrative agencies.  Not to mention, Harris’s disdain for free speech was apparent long before she became vice president. Harris personally, and repeatedly, called for Trump to be censored in 2019, referring to his constitutionally protected right to free speech as a “privilege.” Harris not only requested, verbally and in writing, that Trump be suspended on Twitter but also suggested that Big Tech companies should be punished for permitting him to speak freely.  “Trump's tweets incite violence, threaten witnesses, and obstruct justice,” Harris wrote in an Oct. 2019 post. “We can't crack down on Facebook but turn a blind eye to Twitter. Big tech companies must be held accountable for how they allow him to abuse their platforms. After the 2020 election Harris got her wish. Trump was silenced across nearly every major social media platform including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitch, Shopify and Stripe. When the free speech platform Parler did not follow along with the industry-wide ban, Google and Apple removed it from their app stores, and later, Amazon withdrew its web hosting services that the pro-free speech app Parler used in order to exist online. YouTube even repeatedly removed interviews with Trump in 2021 before he announced his third presidential run.  It doesn’t end there, however. Trump was also censored just hours before Tuesday’s debate when X (formerly Twitter) placed “Adult content” filters over at least two Trump War Room posts. One censored post showed a Trump supporter explaining why he was voting for the former president. Just last week, Amazon’s Alexa would give reasons to vote for Harris but not for Trump, later even going so far as to deny that Trump was shot. Although Kamala’s account was seriously impacted by censorship once when X prevented users from following her account, this was an anomaly and the platform immediately corrected the issue.  Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that the State Department be held to account to adhere to the U.S. Constitution and that Big Tech mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

On Wednesday, MRC founder and president L. Brent Bozell appeared on WMAL’s O’Connor and Company to break down ABC’s awful debate moderator performance put in by anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis. Bozell told the O’Connor and Company’s Julie Gunlock and Andrew Langer that the hatchet job by the moderators was expected: “Speaking for the Media Research Center — we weren’t in the slightest bit surprised at what happened last night.” Bozell added that Trump has “Gone through it with every network but ABC has clearly been the worst all along.”     Bozell didn’t pull any punches as he blasted: “Let me tell you something, whoever it was on the Trump campaign who selected ABC should be fired this morning….The President said last night ‘You should fire incompetent staff,’ this was an incompetent staff.” Bozell implied the Trump staff should have seen the attack coming from ABC’s moderators as he cited MRC research:  Look at the study we just did and it’s one of countless studies. One-hundred percent positive coverage of Kamala Harris during a time where she either won’t do pressers, won’t do interviews, puts out no policy positions, says in speeches things that are flat-out untrue lies. There is a record that could be reported if they had wanted to. Bozell continued: “ABC gave her 100 percent positive news. At the same time, when Donald Trump is gaining in the polls, when Donald Trump has a magnificent convention. When Donald Trump — damn it — is shot in the head 93 percent negative coverage. And someone said “Let’s do an interview on — let’s do, let’s do a debate on ABC because it’s going to be fair.” Bozell then went to the “stats sheets” to further buttress his point:  If you look at the favorable questions it’s 2 to 1 in favor of Harris. But now consider the fact that while Donald Trump was giving an answer they fact-checked him six times….How many times was Kamala fact-checked? Every single answer she gave, she lied. She obfuscated, she dodged it, she wouldn’t answer the question. She tried to blame Donald Trump for Afghanistan….How many times did the moderators say “Now wait a minute, you’re wrong about that?” Zero!  The following is the full segment as aired on the September 11 edition of WMAL’s O’Connor and Company:  JULIE GUNLOCK: Joining us now is Brent Bozell, Media Research Center. Brent, my goodness! Where to start? Have you ever witnessed such a spectacle as what we saw last night with David Muir and Linsey Davis, firefighting and helping Kamala Harris? L.BRENT BOZELL: Well I have to tell you — speaking for the Media Research Center — we weren’t in the slightest bit surprised at what happened last night. The only difference was it was for all of America, not just ABC’s audience but all of America to see what Donald Trump has gone through with ABC News. He’s gone through it with every network but ABC has clearly been the worst all along. And let me tell you something, whoever it was on the Trump campaign who selected ABC should be fired this morning. That is a person who is an utter incompetent and has no idea what he or she is doing — whoever it was. And make no bones about this. The President said last night “You should fire incompetent staff,” this was an incompetent staff. Look at the study we just did and it’s one of countless studies. One-hundred percent positive coverage of Kamala Harris during a time where she either won’t do pressers, won’t do interviews, puts out no policy positions, says in speeches things that are flat-out untrue lies. There is a record that could be reported if they had wanted to. Forget the press conferences, forget the interviews. Why not just do the news? Why not just look at the fact that as border czar she’s never been to the border. Never been to a conflict zone. Why couldn’t they have reported this? ABC gave her 100 percent positive news. At the same time, when Donald Trump is gaining in the polls, when Donald Trump has a magnificent convention. When Donald Trump — damn it — is shot in the head 93 percent negative coverage. And someone said “Let’s do an interview on — let’s do, let’s do a debate on ABC because it’s going to be fair.” GUNLOCK: One of the most galling moments was when — just as you mentioned — you know Trump brings up the assassination attempt and they cut him off. Let’s play cut 45. [Begin clip] DONALD TRUMP: This is the one that weaponized. Not me. She weaponized. I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me. They talk about democracy. “I’m a threat to democracy.”  DAVID MUIR: President Trump. TRUMP: They’re the threat to democracy with their fake “Russia, Russia, Russia” investigation that went nowhere.  DAVID MUIR: We do have a lot to get — we have a lot to get to. Linsey? [End clip] GUNLOCK: Unbelievable! They say “Moving on, moving on!”  ANDREW LANGER: Right, nothing to see here.  GUNLOCK: No exploration. BOZELL: Look, I’m gonna say it. Donald Trump did not prepare. She prepared magnificently and that has to be said. But in that soundbite Donald Trump was 100 percent correct.  LANGER: Right. BOZELL: The Left is painting him in such an ugly way that their looney supporters are taking to the extremes of wanting to kill him. And so that’s true what he said and that’s what David Muir knew was to be true. And that’s why he cut him off.  LANGER: You know, and I think you’re right there, Brent. We’re talking with Brent Bozell from the Media Research Center. I don’t think Donald Trump was particularly prepared and he was drawn down these rabbit holes but — right? They were rabbit holes that were created because the moderators were just teeing up these softball questions. You know it was, it was like this — you know? “Donald Trump, why are you evil? Kamala Harris, why are you wonderful?” And, and you know Kamala Harris gives her everything — “Well I’m wonderful because X,Y and Z. Oh and Donald Trump doesn’t have people going to his rallies.” Which — you know — and he, and he went right for, right for the trap. But the traps couldn’t have been sprung if the moderators would have asked her any – anything sort of remotely approaching a tough question.  BOZELL: You are entirely correct, Andrew. Here’s the stat sheets on this. If you look at the favorable questions it’s 2 to 1 in favor of Harris. But now consider the fact that while Donald Trump was giving an answer they fact-checked him six times. They ought not to have fact-checked him once. They fact-checked him six times. How many times was Kamala fact-checked? Every single answer she gave, she lied. She obfuscated, she dodged it, she wouldn’t answer the question. She tried to blame Donald Trump for Afghanistan. LANGER: Right. BOZELL: How many times did the moderators say “Now wait a minute, you’re wrong about that?” Zero!  LANGER: There you go! That was the question, whether or not they’d done it once?  BOZELL: So you look at it that way, and the number is 4 to 1.  GUNLOCK: There was one interesting moment where they were talking about abortion and suddenly — on the issue that the Left considers her strongest on, you know killing babies —  suddenly her mic was left on. What do you make of that? On purpose?  BOZELL: I don’t know, I don’t know. But I do know this, I do know this. I do know she didn’t answer the question, when she was asked “What are the limits?” And I do know this. That when Donald Trump said that their laws allow babies to die after they are born and he was fact-checked by David Muir. David Muir needs to be fact-checked because David Muir got it wrong and Donald Trump was right. Again, I mean if they can’t win telling the truth they try to win telling a lie.  GUNLOCK: Listen Brent, I was looking forward to this conversation all morning because I knew that you would have great analysis. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.  BOZELL: Thanks as always for having me. 

After CNN’s Dana Bash interviewed Kamala Harris, which was the first formal interview Harris has done since she was installed as the Democrat candidate, Bash sat down for her own interview with Mediaite's Aidan McLaughlin on "Press Club." And despite being from one of the most liberal news outlets in the country, Bash admitted that Harris, who her network has backed, was not prepared for the interview. Dave Rubin plays the clip of Bash explaining how Harris dodged questions she was unprepared for. - YouTube www.youtube.com “The right – their problem was that you didn't necessarily, they felt, hold her down on some of her more nebulous policy positions. What would you say to that?” McLaughlin asked. “I tried. I mean, you can’t force somebody to answer a question, and I asked to follow up. I tried to get more into the nitty-gritty and get the answer,” Bash explained. “In my experience doing interviews, once you ask once, fine. Twice, fine. Three times, if you don’t get a clear answer, that’s kind of your answer,” she told McLaughlin. “How persistent do you feel like you should be in these kind of interviews where you're speaking with the vice president or presidential candidate?” McLaughlin pressed. “It totally depends on the question, on the place you are in the calendar, on the importance,” Bash said, adding, “There are a million factors.” Dave, while he still doesn’t like Dana Bash, appreciates the flicker of honesty. “It's nice to hear you say right there what cannot be denied, which is that they didn't answer any of the questions honestly,” he says. To watch the footage of Bash’s interview, check out the clip above. Want more from Dave Rubin?To enjoy more honest conversations, free speech, and big ideas with Dave Rubin, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

It’s easy to misremember "The Karate Kid." In the 40 years since its release, the movie has been memed into caricature, distilled into a series of catchphrases: wax on, wax off. You beginner luck. Sweep the leg! Daniel wants to win. And that’s maybe the smartest thing about the movie, the thing that sets it apart from all the treacly morality tales it gets confused with. And the plot almost fits into one of the most hackneyed blockbuster templates, so it can get filed away in the mind as a cut-and-dried product of its time: Bullied nerd with heart fights mean jocks and wins. Macho Macchio But that’s actually not quite how "The Karate Kid" goes. Daniel LaRusso, played by icon-in-training Ralph Macchio, is never portrayed as a weakling or a dweeb. From the start, as he drives across the country with his widowed mother (Randee Heller), he is a tough New Jersey transplant — scrappy, athletic, and charming. He draws the interest of Ali (“with an I!”), a glamorous California girl played with confident grace by Elisabeth Shue. Ali is the prize of the school, but Daniel doesn’t shrink from her or botch his first attempt at romancing her. The whole reason he gets into trouble with the kids from the Cobra Kai dojo is because their ringleader, Ali’s ex-boyfriend Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), starts pushing her around. Ali is no wilting flower, but she obviously needs a champion, and Daniel is the only one brave enough to volunteer. At this point, one might expect him to receive an abject pummeling, but he puts up a decent fight. In other words, the confrontation is set up not as a face-off between two ideals of manhood — the good and retiring sweetheart versus the evil alpha male — but between the noble and the corrupted versions of one kind of man: the red-blooded American kind. Brute realities Daniel scores higher than Johnny on the good-guy scale, but he has to confront the hard truth that Johnny simply has more physical power: He is bigger, stronger, better trained. The movie is about those brute realities of being a man and how Daniel’s going to deal with them. At first, he cowers. It’s only after a couple of beatings that Daniel starts to sulk and cringe through the halls of the school, desperate to evade the facts of his situation. If there’s a kind of wimp that Daniel might become, it’s not the sensitive bookworm but the resentful loner, darkly brooding over the unfairness of life and plotting twisted forms of revenge. Not Bastian Bux from "The Neverending Story" but Dostoevsky’s seething underground man. Instead, of course, Daniel meets Nariyoshi Miyagi of Okinawa. Predictably, in the brain-dead race criticism of Current Year America, Mr. Miyagi has gone down as a perverse stereotype of “the perpetual foreigner who exists to serve the whiteness that surrounds him.” Embodying dignity Nonsense. Miyagi is a richly layered tragic hero, and the movie’s finest achievement is how patiently, even reverently it approaches the heart of his story. The central scene of "The Karate Kid" isn’t the final tournament but a late-night drinking binge in which Mr. Miyagi reveals that his wife and baby boy died in one of FDR’s Japanese internment compounds while he was fighting dutifully for America. Once again the movie executes a poignant bait and switch: You think you’re watching the story of a fatherless son, but it’s equally about a sonless father. And in fact it is about race and class, too, though not in the plodding and sanctimonious way that might satisfy the film studies crowd. If Pat Morita’s broken English has a touch of Kabuki melodrama to it, the effect is nevertheless an utterly recognizable portrayal of a person every American has met and loved — the first-generation immigrant who brings his ancient customs like a gift to his adopted country. Sometimes those people do have a hard road to acceptance, one that lies for Miyagi not just through the atrocities of war but past the occasional drunken idiot who jeers and squints at him. He’s even the butt of a running microagression: It’s Miya-GI, not Miya-JEE, and no one can seem to get it right. Miyagi puts his adversaries to shame not by insisting petulantly on his own dignity but by simply embodying it, toweringly, regardless of circumstance. And that’s the shining secret he imparts to Daniel in all his lessons: When they pick on you, when they strut and bluster, when they fight dirty and go for the knees, you simply stand back up. And you breathe, and you refuse to be overthrown. Will to win If Daniel can do that much, his friends say, he’s already won. Ali reveals herself as the woman you never let go when she assures him that if he gets knocked out in the first round, “we’ll leave early.” Even Mr. Miyagi assures him that “win, lose, no matter.” That’s the right thing for them to say. But Daniel wants to win. And that’s maybe the smartest thing about the movie, the thing that sets it apart from all the treacly morality tales it gets confused with. There’s truth to the idea that being a good person is its own victory. But what’s really been done to death is the notion that all we need is for the world to be nicer to nice guys. Daniel knows that’s never going to happen, which means nice won’t cut it: He also has to be strong. Miyagi knows it too, but he has to let Daniel say it. And so the movie ends — not with Daniel holding the trophy, but one shot after that, with a wordless close-up on his teacher’s face. He has said everything that needs to be said. This essay originally appeared in the Rejoice Evermore Substack.

Many undecided voters who tuned into the presidential debate on Tuesday night walked away uncertain about border czar Kamala Harris and broke in favor of former President Donald Trump, according to reports from multiple outlets.Though the sample sizes are notably small and viewers are still processing many of the claims made during the debate, so far, the results appear devastating for Harris, even though many political pundits claimed she outperformed expectations.'You can't pay for groceries with style points. She failed to explain how she's going to help people afford to live.'Reuters spoke with 10 undecided voters who have voted for Republicans and Democrats in the past. Of those, just three have decided to vote for Harris while six now lean toward or plan to vote for Trump."I felt like the whole debate was Kamala Harris telling me why not to vote for Donald Trump instead of why she's the right candidate," said Robert Wheeler from the swing state of Nevada."I still don't know what she is for," added Mark Kadish of Florida. "There was no real meat and bones for her plans."The New York Times reported similar findings in an article entitled "Pundits Said Harris Won the Debate. Undecided Voters Weren’t So Sure.""She didn’t, kind of, separate herself," said Shavanaka Kelly from Wisconsin, another swing state. Kelly told the Times she's still "on the fence."Jason Henderson of Arizona, a former Obama turned Trump voter, was even more blunt. "Trump had the more commanding presentation," he said. "There was nothing done by Harris that made me think she’s better. In any way."Henderson, however, also told the Times that he may eventually "come back to [his] senses," though whether he meant he would switch to Harris or boycott the presidential election entirely is unclear.Other undecided voters interviewed on camera likewise expressed misgivings about Harris' performance and promises."When facts come to facts, my life was better when Trump was in office," one woman told CNN.A man from the same focus group told CNN that he was disappointed in the Biden-Harris administration's handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, calling it a "travesty."A man from Arizona whose family came to the U.S. legally told MSNBC he was frustrated by the preferential treatment seemingly given to illegal aliens. "My family went through a long process to get here legally — I feel that it's unfair for hundreds of thousands to get here without problems and for the federal government to help them out," he explained.An undecided voter in Pennsylvania told NBC News he was upset that Democrats effectively boxed voters out from the electoral process by allowing Harris to receive the nomination through delegates even though she never participated in the 2024 Democratic primary. "Harris received zero votes. I would have liked a say in the primary. I feel like they think they know what's best for me. Harris hasn't said anything," the man said. He also said he thought Harris "stole" many of her ideas from Trump.Dr. Phil McGraw spoke with a woman who claimed she'd had high hopes for Harris going into the debate and was left feeling underwhelmed. "I really, really wanted Vice President Harris to hit it out of the park," the woman said. "I don't think she did."When pressed, the woman said Harris' economic plans lack specifics. "What is an 'opportunity economy'?" the woman wondered. "What does that mean?"Tim Murtaugh from the Trump campaign told Blaze News he's not surprised by viewers' ambivalence toward Harris and her ideas, claiming she and President Joe Biden are "so connected, like conjoined twins, that not even Dr. Ben Carson could separate them.""Kamala Harris needed to achieve a couple of major things to reach undecided voters and she failed. First, they wanted to hear an explanation for why she claims to have reversed herself on so many important issues. She didn't do that and Americans know she's hiding her true radical self. Second, she wanted to try to distance herself from the failed Biden-Harris administration and she didn't even come close," Murtaugh told Blaze News."The media can have their little party for her, like they did after she became the candidate, but you can't pay for groceries with style points. She failed to explain how she's going to help people afford to live."Mere moments after the debate ended on Tuesday night, the Harris team issued a statement calling for a second debate:Under the bright lights, the American people got to see the choice they will face this fall at the ballot box: between moving forward with Kamala Harris, or going backward with Trump. That's what they saw tonight and what they should see at a second debate in October. Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is Donald Trump?Trump responded to the call for a second debate by declaring victory in the first. "She wants a second debate because she lost tonight very badly," he said during an interview in the post-debate spin room.As for a second debate, Trump said he'd "have to think about it." His running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, and Harris' running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, are scheduled to debate on October 1.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!