By Michael Schwarz October 4, 2024 at 7:30am
On Tuesday, Jon Delano of KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, conducted a remarkable remote interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
As one would expect, the vice president largely punted Delano’s questions during an interview that lasted a whopping 11 minutes.
On one issue important to voters in swing-state Pennsylvania, however, Harris had no choice but to confront one of her past policy statements, and not even a friendly local interviewer could save the vice president from herself.
Early in the interview, Delano referred to a local campaign ad that quoted Harris as favoring a ban on fracking.
The ad in question came from Republican Senate nominee Dave McCormick.
Since July, McCormick has consistently tied his opponent, Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, to the vice president. Here, for instance, is an ad from last month:
🚨 NEW AD 🚨
Here’s a reminder of one of Harris’ biggest lies that the ABC moderators let her get away with last night.
Since the media won’t hold her to account, we will. pic.twitter.com/SOLHGDfhkp
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 11, 2024
Note Harris’s own words from 2019: “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.”
Delano read that quote and then asked the vice president if she had changed her view.
Incredibly, Harris called the ad “a mischaracterization that I think is intended to make people afraid of my presidency.”
Then, she actually tried to recast herself as pro-fracking.
“I will not ban fracking. I did not as vice president. In fact, I cast the tie-breaking vote to open up more fracking leases,” she said.
Note that the vice president never explained why she changed her mind.
Harris’s fracking-related answer continued for another 60 excruciating seconds. Much of it qualified as pure drivel.
For instance, near the end of her remarks, she shifted into platitudes about “lifting up the middle class.”
That train of thought produced the following gem from the word-salad-prone vice president:
“My perspective on this issue is that I’m gonna bring jobs back to rural communities, I’m gonna make sure that we invest in those communities that have done the kind of work that you have in mind when we talk about Pittsburgh, when we talk about the greater aspect of Pennsylvania, and I’m gonna keep doing that work.”
The “greater aspect of Pennsylvania”?
Readers who, for whatever masochistic reasons of their own, might wish to watch the entire interview may do so below. The segment on fracking began around the 3:50 mark.
If possible, Harris’s performance only got worse after the fracking question.
Do you think Kamala Harris wants to ban fracking?
For instance, Delano repeatedly asked how Harris would prevent a Japanese buyer from purchasing Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel. The vice president said she would prevent it but never said how.
Likewise, Delano asked Harris about former President Donald Trump’s contention that the vice president has had nearly four years to do all the things she has promised to do while campaigning for president.
On this point, Delano’s efforts to guide the vice president toward an answer were simply shameless.
“Is he right?” Delano said of Trump. “Or did President Biden not give you, or limited in some way, your role as vice president?”
Harris did not address the question. In fact, she fumbled around for words and botched the answer to such a degree that Delano had to help her.
“But you would acknowledge that as vice president you can’t do the things that you can do as president,” Delano said.
No doubt the lobotomized vice president did not even realize that a friendly local interviewer had bailed her out. But surely viewers could see it.
Amid all of Harris’s non-answers and head-scratching phrases, however, one must not lose sight of the key point here.
In short, when presented with her own words from 2019, Harris described them as a “mischaracterization.” Then, she never explained why she changed her mind.
Thus, in effect, she told anyone who saw McCormick’s ad: “Reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.” Under the current regime, with Biden and Harris as puppets, we have reached that level of Orwellian gaslighting.
Surely the viewers could see that. And surely, to those swing-state voters who saw the entire performance, not even a friendly local interviewer could save Harris from herself.
Michael Schwarz holds a Ph.D. in History and has taught at multiple colleges and universities. He has published one book and numerous essays on Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the Early U.S. Republic. He loves dogs, baseball, and freedom. After meandering spiritually through most of early adulthood, he has rediscovered his faith in midlife and is eager to continue learning about it from the great Christian thinkers.
Michael Schwarz holds a Ph.D. in History and has taught at multiple colleges and universities. He has published one book and numerous essays on Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the Early U.S. Republic. He loves dogs, baseball, and freedom. After meandering spiritually through most of early adulthood, he has rediscovered his faith in midlife and is eager to continue learning about it from the great Christian thinkers.
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