The Media Research Center aggressively defended Donald Trump’s hostility in an appearance before a gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists, attacking the journalists for asking Trump questions even though asking questions is what journalists do. When Kamala Harris appeared before the NABJ — acting much more respectful and getting respect in return — the MRC unsurprisingly couldn’t handle it. Alex Christy groused in a Sept. 17 post:
When Donald Trump sat down with the National Association of Black Journalists on July 31, the tone was combative and those interviewing him insisted on doing live fact-checking. On Tuesday, it was Kamala Harris’s turn for a much softer interview that saw the on-the-spot fact-checking go away despite multiple factually incorrect statements and be replaced with questions about how the GOP has “weaponized” her laughter.
Politico White House correspondent Eugene Daniels kicked off a series of softballs where he invited Harris to explain why, in her opinion, voters are better off than they were four years ago.
NPR Fresh Air host Tonya Mosley followed up with another softball, “What plans will you propose to guarantee that families can actually afford childcare and elder care?”
[…]Throughout, Harris gave long-winded answers, and after she claimed “no working family should pay more than 7% of their income in childcare,” TheGrio White House correspondent Gerren Keith Gaynor invited her to simply give a stump speech, “What is your message to young black male voters who feel left out of this economy and how can your economic policies materially change your lives?”
When the tough questions began, they were from the left, as Mosley asked about Gaza, “Where do you see the line between aggression and defense and our power as Israel’s ally to do something?”
After Harris replied with typical liberal clichés about a two-state solution, Mosley tried again, “What levers does the U.S. have to support Palestinians in their right to self-determination? And is it even possible as Israel’s ally?”
For her part, Harris hyped the administration’s desire that “there be no reoccupation of Gaza, that there be no changing of the territorial lines in Gaza.”
Christy whined that Harris didn’t face fact-checks the way Trump did (while not identifying anything that needed to be fact-checked):
Switching gears, Gaynor asked about a proposal to create a reparations commission, “Would you as president take executive action to create this [reparations] commission?”
Harris danced around the specific issue, but said, “We just need to speak truth about history in spite of the fact some people are trying to erase history and trying to teach our children otherwise.”
There was no fact-check of that from the stage. Ultimately, Harris would say Congress should tackle the issue.
[…]Also avoiding a fact-check was Harris’s statement on JD Vance, Springfield, and bomb threats, “When you have that kind of microphone in front of you, you really ought to understand at a very deep level how much your words have meaning.”
Christy didn’t identify what exactly needed to be fact-checked here — Vance indisputably lied about Springfield, and people were indisputably threatened by bomb threats and didn’t know the source of them at the time.
The next day, Christy devoted an entire post to complaining that Harris wasn’t fact-checked like Trump (while not identifying any Trump-level falsehoods and offering only right-wing boilerplate instead):
During Vice President Kamala Harris’s interview session with the National Association of Black Journalists, on-stage fact-checking was nonexistent, but PolitiFact assigned itself to do the task online. Unfortunately, the difference between PolitiFact’s treatment of Harris’s NABJ appearance and Trump’s was just as stark as the candidates’ appearances themselves.
Back in July, PolitiFact gave Trump one half-true, two mostly false, five false, and two pants on fire ratings. That’s zero on the true side, one in the middle, and nine on the false side. Harris, meanwhile, received two true, three mostly true, one half-true, and one false rating. That’s a total of five statements on the right, one in the middle, and one on the wrong side of the truth-o-meter.
The typical defense to such lopsided results is to simply say that Trump gets more false ratings because he spreads more falsehoods, but there were at least three significant statements from Harris that deserved to be on the false side in addition to her claim that unemployment was at its highest point since the Great Depression when she and Biden took office.
During the part of the discussion on whether Harris would use executive action to create a commission to study reparations, she declared, “We just need to speak truth about history in spite of the fact some people are trying to erase history and trying to teach our children otherwise.”
Fact-check: Nobody is trying to erase history. Not subscribing to The 1619 Project’s factually challenged view of history is not “trying to erase” it.
On the situation regarding bomb threats in Springfield, Ohio, Harris claimed, “A whole community put in fear… When you have that kind of microphone in front of you, you really ought to understand at a very deep level how much your words have meaning.”
Fact-check: Gov. Mike DeWine, who has fiercely condemned the rumor that Haitian migrants are eating people’s pets, claimed, “We have people unfortunately overseas who are taking these actions. Some of them are coming from one particular country.”
Christy conveniently failed to mention that it is Vance — his preferred vice presidential candidate — who has been spreading that “rumor,” though the MRC has actually defended Vance spreading the lie because it boosts right-wing anti-immigrant narratives. And, again, the targets of those threats had no way of knowing they were made by “overseas” people when they were made. Christy further groused:
For the final question of the session, Harris was asked if she has faith in the Secret Service in the aftermath of the second assassination attempt against Trump. Harris replied that she does, but claimed to be concerned for people without Secret Service protection, including for LGBT people in Florida with their “Don’t Say Gay” laws.
Fact-check: It is not illegal to say “gay” in Florida or any other state. They merely ensure that all classroom instruction is age-appropriate.
We remember that Christy’s MRC repeatedly described the Florida law as an “anti-grooming” bill despite the fact that the word appears nowhere in it, and that any reference to the existence to LGBTQ people was effectrively deemed not to be “age-appropriate.”
Another post by Christy that day lashed out at a black journalist for her question of Harris he didn’t like:
During Tuesday’s interview with Kamala Harris at the National Association of Black Journalists, TheGrio White House correspondent Gerren Keith Gaynor lobbed the softest of softballs when he asked Harris what she made of the idea that “Republicans have at times weaponized you laughing in campaign ads.” Later, Gaynor would join MSNBC’s The ReidOut and admit he did it to boost the Harris campaign.
Gaynor also asked, “Why is joy important to you to insert into this election, and what do you make of Republicans using that as a way to suggest you’re not a series candidate?”
With that all as background, host Joy Reid inquired, “Gerren, why did you ask that question?”
Gaynor responded that, “it was important for me to ask that question because one, I noticed in doing my research for this interview, the vice president had been using the joyful warrior term even years before she was vice president. She did an interview with Ellen DeGeneres and she described herself as a joyful warrior. And this is obviously a theme of the Harris-Walz campaign that I think is resonating with voters.”
He also claimed to observe how, “on the Republican side, they have been using, Joy, her laughing, and using that as a tool to suggest that she’s not a serious candidate, particularly as a black woman, and the implications that that might give to voters. It was important for me to lift that up. And who doesn’t love joy, Joy?”
That is what was important? Her “joy” and kooky accusations of racism?
Tim Graham whined about the interview in his Sept. 18 podcast:
The National Association of Black Journalists hosted an oh-so-polite sitdown with Kamala Harris on Tuesday, which displayed a dramatic double standard compared to the savaging of Donald Trump at the NABJ convention in July. The NABJ is a liberal interest group, like the NAACP.
Harris skipped out on their convention, but promised to come back later. It’s obvious that her team didn’t want her showing up to the same event, even if they weren’t ever going to be on stage with Trump at the same time.
As we suggested in July, Harris will never face hostile questions like Trump does. There is no way she would ever be asked questions as rude as Trump received from her pals at the NABJ. She’s never going to accept an interview request from Fox or Newsmax or God forbid, conservative radio stars. The double standard here is blatant and unforgettable, just as it was at the ABC debate.
Harris was never “fact checked” by her questioners, and the “live” checks from PolitiFact had one “False” and everything else was True, Fine, and Dandy. Liberal Democrats are presumed to be telling the truth about 80 percent of the time and the other 20 percent are “well, their heart is in the right place.”
Graham reworked that whining into his Sept. 20 column:
The easiest thing in the world to predict is that Kamala Harris is going to be cuddled by minority journalists. If you speak the mantra “diversity, equity, inclusion” – and let’s add “history” – you’re rooting for a Harris victory.
So when Harris finally consented to a sit-down with three liberals at a Philadelphia NPR station for the National Association of Black Journalists, the title of the event could have been “You Had Me at Hello.” Not every question was a softball – they pushed back from the left on handgun control and denying aid to Israel. But nobody wanted her chances of victory to be damaged in any way.
Unsurprisingly, Graham rehashed his employer’s complaints about Trump’s hostility getting called out:
Politico reporter Eugene Daniels – whose official beat has been championing the vice president for the last four years – opened the lovefest by asking the simple question about whether the American people are better off after four years. She responded by uncorking outrageous claims – that we had record-high unemployment when they assumed office (wrong) and that January 6 was the most terrible attack on our democracy since the Civil War. It’s like 9/11 never happened.
There was no pushback. This was a shocking contrast with Donald Trump’s NABJ interview at their convention in July, where ABC reporter Rachel Scott began with a vicious stemwinder about how many black journalists thought Trump shouldn’t be allowed at their convention, how he disparaged black Democrats like Ilhan Omar and insulted black journalists for “stupid” questions, and that he had dinner with a white supremacist (Nick Fuentes). Kanye West brought Fuentes, who was not invited, but Trump said he didn’t know who he was at the time.
Scott followed up by not asking, but telling Trump he should get his fellow Republicans to stop attacking her favorite candidate Harris as a “DEI hire.” They see this as a slur on Harris’s talents. They can’t admit that many Democrats demanded Biden install a black woman on the ticket – which sounds exactly like a DEI imperative.
Kamala Harris will never face hostile questions like this. There is no way she would ever be asked questions as rude as Trump received from Scott. She’s never going to accept an interview request from Fox or Newsmax or God forbid, conservative radio stars. The double standard is blatant and unforgettable. She’s not even interested in interviews from her most obvious allies, like the corrupt debate moderators at ABC.
Fox host Harris Faulkner was one of the three questioners at the Trump NABJ event. Why couldn’t they balance it out and have Faulkner also ask questions of Harris?
Is Graham admitting that Faulkner is a biased reporter? We thought Graham believed that right-wing media bias didn’t exist.
Graham concluded by grumbling that “These journalists are like Drew Barrymore, who was terrified of harming Kamala’s career in an interview.” We don’t recall Graham ever criticizing Faulkner for her softball questions to Trump.