(Headline USA) A CNN panelist called out the network and the rest of the leftist media this week for cheerleading Vice President Kamala Harris’s ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket, Fox News reported.
“There was a brief moment for about three weeks, between the presidential debate and between when Biden stepped out of the race, when actually a lot of the media was doing its job, it was holding powerful people’s feet to the fire,” Manhattan Institute president Reihan Salam said on Monday. “It was asking tough questions.”
The conservative think-tank head was referring to the media’s increased focus on President Joe Biden’s mental acuity following the 81-year-old’s abysmal debate performance against former President Donald Trump.
“There are a lot of folks who were really embarrassed by not having been applying more scrutiny” Salam continued. “And now what you see, is a total suspension of that scrutiny.”
Harris’s presidential campaign was met with celebration by networks such as CNN and MSNBC, which immediately adopted her campaign surrogates’ messaging, especially in regards to vice presidential candidate JD Vance.
SUPERCUT!
Proof the entire Democrat-Media Complex outsources their brains to DNC talking-point writers #JDVanceIsWeird pic.twitter.com/ceN2qvIPTM
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 29, 2024
Salam argued the media was doing the public a disservice by attempting to cover up Harris’s long track record of failure and controversy.
“I think a lot of people want to see the media doing its job,” he said.
“Let’s ask serious questions about Kamala Harris‘s record,” he continued. “Let’s ask about the quite stridently left-wing positions she was taking as recently as 2020: Has she really changed her mind? What exactly has she been doing in the White House?”
CNN host Abby Phillip pushed back, claiming the media has already asked Harris tough questions about her policy positions.
However, Salam pointed out that very few in the media have been asking those same questions now that Harris is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
“There are a lot of others who I think, frankly, feel a sense of animal spirits and excitement,” he said.
“Biden’s out of the race, now you have someone who is generationally closer, ideologically closer to them,” he added. “And so there are a lot of folks who I think are really rooting for her.”
