The host of a Harris campaign “town hall” in Pennsylvania on Monday warned the audience the event would feature “pre-determined” questions for Liz Cheney and Vice President Kamala Harris.
The acknowledgment indicates the Harris campaign is concerned about voters asking Harris questions about her record. Under the administration, costs increased by about 20 percent across the board, Russia invaded Ukraine, Hamas and Iran attacked Israel, illegal migrants invaded the southern border, and the nation suffered the deadly Afghan war withdrawal.
The Harris campaign billed the “town hall” as “moderated conversations” with the candidate and Cheney to persuade Republicans not to vote for Trump. The event is a part of a Cheney/Harris tour this week in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
“We have some pre-determined questions that hopefully I’ll be able to ask some of the questions that might be in your head,” host Maria Shriver told the audience before the event:
During the event, Harris was asked about what she meant “about ‘turning the page.’ What’s on the next page?” the moderator Sarah Longwell asked.
Harris trashed her own record as President Joe Biden’s vice president. “And needless to say,” Harris said, “mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration.”
“I bring to it my own ideas, my own experiences, but it is also about moving past what, frankly, I think, has been the last decade of the American discourse being influenced by Donald Trump in a way that has had the effect of suggesting we as Americans should point the finger at one another in a way that has been using the power of the presidency to demean and divide us,” she said.
Liz Cheney, a former congresswoman, attacked Trump for allegedly being anti-democracy, a closing Harris campaign messaging theme. On Monday, a Washington Post/Schar School poll of key swing states undercut the campaign’s argument. Trump would do a better job of defending democracy than Harris, the poll found.
“We have the opportunity to tell the whole world who we are,” Cheney said. “And we have the chance to say, you know, we’re — we’re going to reject cruelty. We’re going to reject the kind of vile vitriol that we’ve seen from Donald Trump. We’re going to reject the misogyny that we’ve seen from Donald Trump and JD Vance.”
Cheney is a neocon, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and a longtime establishment figure in Congress. She helped Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on the partisan January 6 Committee, reportedly leaked on former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, asked for Democrats’ vote in her 2022 reelection campaign, and grew her net worth from an estimated $7 million when she first took office in 2017 to possibly more than $44 million in 2020.
Cheney’s actions caused her to lose her powerful position in Republican House leadership, now held by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). To save her title, Cheney reportedly met “off-the-record” with Fox News board member Paul Ryan to shore up rumors of her ouster. Bill Kristol, editor-at-large of the Bulwark, “recognized the meeting as perhaps Cheney’s last gasp to remain in power,” Breitbart News reported.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
