As Politico Playbook notes this morning, Vice President Kamala Harris’s appearance before the National Black Journalists Association (NABJ) yesterday wasn’t much like Donald Trump’s.
For one thing, she was there the whole time, and her handlers didn’t cut it off 34 minutes in because it was going so poorly. The audience didn’t laugh in her face derisively even once. She didn’t accuse anyone in the room of only recently becoming Black. Just a very different experience overall.
Playbook also noted that she didn’t make a whole ton of news. She often stuck with her talking points, instead of making headlines on things she didn’t want to make headlines on. (It wasn’t for lack of trying on the journos’ part.)
She talked about what needs to be done in Gaza, and about a holistic approach to dealing with gun violence. She said she had spoken to Donald Trump this week after whatever happened on his golf course Sunday, “check[ing] on him to see if he was okay,” and said she reiterated to him that there’s “no place for political violence in our country.”
But for our money the most important moment came when Harris was asked about Springfield, Ohio — was this just “irredeemable racism”? Was a federal response needed? What the fuck is wrong with these people spreading this hoax?
“It’s a crying shame, literally,” Harris said. She talked about how it was picture day at a school that was evacuated. She talked about how she learned a long time ago a lesson that Donald Trump and JD Vance have never learned.
HARRIS: I learned a long time ago in my career, having a background as a prosecutor, when you have these positions, when you have that kind of microphone in front of you, you really ought to understand at a deep level how much your words have meaning. I learned at a very young stage in my career that the meaning of my words could impact whether somebody was free or in prison. As attorney general of California, fifth largest economy in the world, I was acutely aware that my words could move markets. When you are bestowed with a microphone that is that big, there is a profound responsibility that comes with that, that is an extension of — what should not be lost in this moment — this concept of the public trust. To then understand what the public trust means, it means that you have been invested with trust to be responsible in the way you use your words, much less how you conduct yourself.
And especially when you have been and then seek to be again president of the United States of America … and so I go back to, it’s a crying shame, literally.
What was that about how the Democrats need to moderate their language to keep poor Donald Trump out of danger? What were you saying about that, Republicans? What were you saying, JD Vance? Just kidding, fuck off.
Harris talked about how the blood libels that Donald Trump and JD Vance and their followers are spreading are “age-old” lies fascists tell about immigrants and minorities, and tied it directly to Trump’s own white supremacist record:
HARRIS: This is not new in terms of these tropes. This is not new in terms of where it's coming from. And, you know, whether it is refusing to rent to people, rent to Black families, whether it is taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times against five innocent Black and Latino teenagers, the Central Park Five, calling for their execution, whether it is referring to the first Black president of the United States with a lie? A birther lie?
Harris expressed her confidence that the “vast majority” of Americans are appalled by what MAGA is doing to these innocent people in Springfield, that more people are motivated by what they have in common, as opposed to what divides them.
She concluded that answer:
HARRIS: You cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America, engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country, is designed to have people pointing fingers at each other. It's designed to do that. And I think most people in our country, regardless of their race, are starting to see through this nonsense. And to say, you know what, let’s turn the page on this, this is exhausting, it’s harmful, and it’s hateful. And grounded in some age-old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for. So let’s turn the page, chart a new way forward and say you can’t have that microphone again.
Yes, it was quite different from Harris’s opponent’s appearance with the same group. Hopefully American voters are starting to realize that on top of everything else, this election represents the opportunity to fully turn the page on the entire era of Trump, that this is the one after which — assuming he loses — America will soon reach its dream of never seeing his fucking face or hearing his fucking mouth ever again.
One of our very favorite moments of Harris’s appearance at the NABJ came at the end. The panel asked Harris about Republicans who mock her laughing, who use her self-proclaimed “joyful warrior” label against her. She turned straight to the audience and the camera and said something everybody who ever goes up against white fascist Republicans should keep front of mind at all times:
Addressing any young people in earshot, she said, “There are some times when your adversary will try to turn your strength into a weakness. Don’t you let them.”
And then she listed off all the things that give her joy in this fight.
Joyful warrior doesn’t give a fuck what asshole Republicans say about her. They’ll be calling her “Madam President” soon enough, we reckon.
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What little respectful dialog might have existed in this campaign has died.
JD is now saying Kamala needs to apologize to the people of Springfield Ohio for all the harm she has done to them. And the MSM is quoting him and reporting what he said. They might add a poo poo at the end but they still ran the quote. The MSM and RNC are going to paper cut us to death because they have a rabid soulless twit that doesn't give a shit and won't stop lying blabbing yadda yadda.
The Dems need to unleash the flying monkeys (surrogates like mayor pete, shapiro, etc.) asap and grab any camera they can find. We can't just let JD fill every network's Sunday shows without representation ourselves etc. etc. etc.
I saw a clip a few weeks ago (https://x.com/oneunderscore__/status/1826733383562789113) of Harris talking to some young women (high school age probably) about how she manages to be such a good public speaker. She says that when you give a speech, it isn't about you. It's about what you know that they need to know. Like if you're the only person on the Titanic who knows it's sinking. The most important thing is that other people know what you know.
I'm not a very outgoing person, but I've never had a problem with public speaking (the largest crowd I've spoken to is probably only a few hundred people). And I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's true that when I give a talk, my goal is for people to know what I know about something. And usually I know more about what I'm specifically talking about than anyone else there.