(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) White House National Security Council communications adviser John Kirby said that addressing veterans’ concerns about the botched Afghanistan withdrawal was of “no use” in a reply-all faux pas.
The blunder occurred on Wednesday, the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when Fox News sought comments from the White House regarding criticism related to Afghanistan.
Instead of responding solely to the White House aides who had forwarded him the email, Kirby mistakenly included everyone on the email chain, including the Fox News reporter.
“Obviously no use in responding. A ‘handful’ of vets indeed and all of one stripe,” Kirby dismissively replied in his email. The term “one stripe” appeared to belittle the veterans by mocking their years of service.
After realizing the error, Kirby sent a follow-up email to the Fox News reporter: “Clearly, I didn’t realize you were on the chain.”
Kirby’s comments ignited widespread backlash on social media, with many demanding his immediate resignation or firing.
“In an administration with someone in charge, his resignation would be on the desk tomorrow,” commented podcast host Stephen L. Miller.
In an administration with someone in charge, his resignation would be on the desk tomorrow. https://t.co/PUv2YlZqF6
Other critics sounded the alarm about what other disparaging comments the White House might have privately said about veterans.
This Kirby scandal follows the release of a House Foreign Affairs Committee report two days prior. The comprehensive and damning report exposes the deadly errors by the Biden-Harris administration in the Afghanistan withdrawal.
On Aug. 26, 2021, an ISIS-K suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. servicemen as the Taliban seized Kabul, while the U.S. struggled to evacuate.
These deaths have long been attributed to both Biden and Harris for ignoring the signs and intelligence of an impending fall of Kabul. Roughly 1,000 Americans, $7 billion in U.S. weaponry and $57 million in cash were left behind.
Kirby rebuked the report as showing “little or nothing new,” and without clear evidence argued that Biden had no choice but to withdraw from Afghanistan to avoid extending the war.
Straight gaslighting from Biden-Harris White House official John Kirby, arguing it's President Trump who should be blamed for the Afghanistan withdrawal in August 2021, which resulted in the deaths of 13 American soldiers. pic.twitter.com/fPIFMa6OzV
This deflection prompted veterans to criticize Kirby, leading to Fox News seeking his comment and Kirby committing his reply-all blunder.
“The bottom line is that the Biden-Harris administration chose politics over strategy, and Kirby, who I wouldn’t trust to guard my grocery list, is now trying to cover for them,” Army veteran and Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., told Fox News.
Lin Gui’an, the assistant director of the New York City Police Commissioner Liaison Unit, previously worked as the vice chairman of a nonprofit that has since been linked to the Chinese government, according to the New York Post.
The nonprofit, the Fujian Changle Nanxiang Benevolent Association of Eastern America, is financially tied to a number of CCP-controlled groups known collectively as United Front.
United Front is funded and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and works to spread Chinese propaganda in the U.S., according to the U.S. government.
Lin worked with United Front and the Fujian Changle Nanxiang Benevolent Association of Eastern America for 12 years, from 1994 to 2006, the Post reported.
He joined the New York Police Department in a non-uniform, office-based role in 2022 and was quickly promoted in the department.
Last year, he was “handpicked” by Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban to serve in his current role, despite having only worked for the NYPD, and for law enforcement in general, for less than two years.
Lin’s past ties to United Front are of particular concern after the arrest this month of Linda Sun, a former aide to Hochul and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Sun was charged with 10 criminal counts, including money laundering, visa fraud, conspiring to act as a foreign agent for China, and other crimes.
And, earlier this year, a NYPD cop was fired for allegedly spying for the CCP, according to internal disciplinary records.
Lt. Steven Li was working for the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau when he allegedly helped a Chinese official find and attempt to repatriate a Chinese fugitive living in New York.
‼️Why are they putting metals in tampons? It turns out that many of them contain measurable amounts of zinc, arsenic, and lead. Many companies are being sued for not disclosing the presence of lead in their tampons, which poses significant health risks due to the direct vaginal… pic.twitter.com/q59LmSxzYK
According to a public announcement, a July small-scale study “found metals in some tampons.”
However, the study did not test “whether metals are released from tampons when used,” nor whether those metals are making their way into women’s bloodstreams during use.
Kathrin Schilling, an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, who was one of the researchers involved in the study, previously told CNN that researchers detected a concerning concentration of both arsenic and lead in some leading tampon brands sold in the United States, United Kingdom, and Greece.
“We found an average of 100 nanograms per gram of lead and 2 nanograms per gram of arsenic in the tampons,” Schilling noted. “There was no detectable level of chromium and no detectable level of mercury, which is very good.”
The lead levels in particular are over 10 times that which is allowed in municipal water systems.
In addition to physiological effects, lead poisoning can also result in an array of mental illnesses in young adults, including major depressive disorder, panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Over the past decade, the number of teen girls and young women reporting mental-health concerns such as feelings of sadness or hopelessness has drastically increased by more than 20%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many of these neurdivergent females go on to become childless cat ladies and vote against their own self-interest out of spite.
In order to quell concerns over toxic tampons, the FDA has repeatedly insisted that all approved medical or health products undergo extensive “biocompatibility” testing prior to their release to the general public.
“We want the public to know that before tampons can be legally sold in the U.S., they must meet FDA requirements for safety and effectiveness,” the statement noted. “Manufacturers must test the product and its component materials before, during, and after manufacturing.”
Concerns over the FDA’s procedures and the politics involved in the approval process were amplified by the race to get out an effective COVID-19 vaccine during the 2019-2020 pandemic.
In order to receive FDA approval for emergency use, the vaccines had to establish that there were no alternative treatments, leading Big Pharma, the CDC, and others to launch smear campaigns against promising treatments such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.
After the experimental mRNA jabs hit the market, many adverse health side effects were subsequently swept under the rug—including reports that the vaccines contained traces of graphene and other heavy metal fragments, which fueled suspicion that globalist elites might be attempting to inject the populus with nanobots.
It is unclear whether nanobots could likewise be transmitted through tampons.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) In December 2018, then-President Donald Trump signed the Farm Bill into law, making the eating of pets like dogs and cats illegal in the United States, the Associated Press reported at the time.
Now, the Biden–Harris administration’s open-border policies have reportedly led Haitian refugees to openly flout the law in American towns such as Springfield, Ohio.
The Farm Bill included the Dog and Cat Meat Prohibition Act, a provision that was added to the bill at the behest of the Animal Hope and Wellness Foundation, a nonprofit group that rescues dogs and cats from the foreign meat trade.
Marc Ching of AHWF said at the time that the bill was “a major victory for the animals, prohibiting the consumption of two entire species,” while also “making America the leader in putting an end to this brutal practice worldwide.”
Before Trump signed the bill, the practice had been legal in America 44 states.
But the left is bringing back pets as food, particularly in Springfield, Ohio, a city that has been invaded by approximately 20,000 Haitians.
According to reports from citizens of Springfield, it seems that some of the Haitian refugees have been eating local pets.
“My neighbor informed me that her daughters friend had lost her cat. She checked pages, kennels, asked around, etc.,” one Springfield resident posted in an online message group.
“One day she came home from work, as soon as she stepped out of her car, looked towards a neighbors house, where Haitians live, and saw her cat hanging from a branch, like you’d do a deer for butchering, and they were carving it up to eat.”
The same poster claimed that similar things were happening to local dogs, ducks and geese as well.
Someone even caught footage of local police arresting a refugee who had eaten a cat.
🚨 Woman arrested in Ohio for eating a neighbor’s pet cat — WHAT?!
Municipal governments, teaming up with ostensibly Christian charities, the federal government, and local businesses, all appear to be working in coordination to permanently alter the lives of longtime citizens and residents.
“I understand they’re here under temporary protected status and you’re protecting them, and I understand that our city services are overwhelmed and understaffed, but who’s protecting us?” one longtime resident of Springfield said.
“Who’s protecting me? I want out of this town. I am sorry. Please give me a reason to stay.”
Still, some hope for the people of Springfield remains, as Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost investigates the Biden-Harris administration for flooding small towns with wave of third-world refugees.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The DOJ’s Inspector General published a scathing report Wednesday, finding that a former FBI assistant special agent in charge, or ASAC, sexually harassed an FBI Special Agent (SA), made racially insensitive remarks to an FBI investigative analyst, and then threatened his subordinates with retaliation if they complained.
The DOJ-OIG said it opened an investigation into the ASAC after receiving reports that he sexually harassed an agent, made racially insensitive remarks, and “made misrepresentations to supervisors about a subordinate’s willingness to volunteer for a temporary assignment.”
After the inspector general began the investigation, the FBI provided additional information indicating that the ASAC bullied subordinates by using intimidating language and tactics with them, the DOJ-OIG report said. According to the DOJ-OIG, the FBI ASAC retired during the investigation into his misconduct.
“The OIG investigation substantiated the allegations that the ASAC sexually harassed the SA, made racially insensitive remarks to the IA, made misrepresentations to supervisors, bullied subordinates, threatened subordinates with retaliation if they made complaints about management, and lacked candor under oath in an OIG interview—all in violation of FBI and DOJ policy,” the DOJ-OIG report concluded.
DOJ Inspector General released a pretty scathing report today on an ex-FBI ASAC who sounds like a real jerk. pic.twitter.com/6nqPvRKJ80
Most recently, Headline USA exclusively obtained a DOJ-OIG report about Jeffrey Sallet, the former third-in-charge at the FBI. According to that report, Sallet made lewd comments during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising, and he invited a colleague to join the “harem” of his Texas oil billionaire friend—along with other instances of misconduct.
Like the unnamed ASAC in Wednesday’s report, Sallet retired amidst the DOJ-OIG investigation.
According to a 2020 Associated Press article entitled, ‘Under the rug:’ Sexual misconduct shakes FBI’s senior ranks, the last time the OIG did an extensive probe of sexual misconduct within the FBI, it tallied 343 “offenses” from fiscal years 2009 to 2012, including three instances of “videotaping undressed women without consent.”
That AP investigation identified at least six sexual misconduct allegations involving senior FBI officials over the past five years, including two new claims brought by women who say they were sexually assaulted by ranking agents.
“Each of the accused FBI officials appears to have avoided discipline, the AP found, and several were quietly transferred or retired, keeping their full pensions and benefits even when probes substantiated the sexual misconduct claims against them,” the AP reported in December 2020.
During Tuesday night’s presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the vice president gave a highly deceiving statement about where she was during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising.
“I was at the Capitol on January 6th. I was the Vice President-elect. I was also an acting senator. I was there,” she said.
Harris’s statement was factual, but not truthful. J6 footage revealed in March that Harris left the Capitol at 11:21 a.m.—hours before the building was breached by angry protestors.
Newly released Capitol CCTV shows Sen. Kamala Harris exiting the Capitol at 11:21 a.m. on January 6. The government filed indictments in January 6 cases for almost a year falsely claiming that Harris was still in the Capitol building.
Bizarrely, Harris also failed to mention during Tuesday’s debate where she went after she left the Capitol: to the Democratic National Committee headquarters, which put her within 20 feet of a pipe bomb that had been planted there.Harris arrived to the DNC at 11:25 a.m., but the nearby pipe bomb wasn’t discovered until 1:07 p.m. by a plainclothes Capitol Police officer.
Some J6 researchers argue that Harris’s silence on the issue suggests that the U.S. government is engaging in a coverup with the pipe bomb case—perhaps because a government asset planted the bombs, or for some other unknown reason.
For more than the last three years, the FBI has told the public that the pipe bombs discovered outside the DNC and RNC headquarters sat for some 17 until shortly before 1 p.m. on Jan. 6 , when a female pedestrian found the RNC pipe bomb. Then, the DNC pipe bomb was discovered by a plainclothes Capitol Police officer at 1:07 p.m.—right as violence at the Capitol was beginning.
Kamala was in the DNC building at this time on Jan 6
To this day she lies and covers it up… just last night she only said she was in the Capitol
The FBI’s narrative has raised questions as to how the Secret Service’s bomb-sniffing dogs missed the DNC pipe bomb when sweeping the building the morning of Jan. 6. And last month, investigative reporter Julie Kelly released new footage showing an apparent law enforcement officer from Harris’s security detail exiting a DC Metro Police SUV at 12:51 p.m., and walking towards the area where the pipe bomb was found—with a bag in hand. Minutes later, the same officer walked back to the police vehicle with bag still in hand.
“What exactly was he doing? Did he set the device? And if he was acting on the up-and-up, how in the world did he not see a pipe bomb sitting right there?” Kelly asked.
For Revolver News’s Darren Beattie, who’s broken numerous stories on the pipe bomb case, Kelly’s footage makes it overwhelmingly likely that the FBI surveillance footage is fake and the bombs were actually planted not the evening before, but day of Jan. 6. Beattie has previously analyzed surveillance footage of the J5/6 pipe bomber, showing that the FBI has failed to release footage that would have shown the bomber planting the device.
Futhermore, Headline USA revealed in July that investigators identified a “person of interest” in its Jan. 5/6 pipe bombs investigation within days of the incident.
The record about the FBI’s person of interest is a Jan. 10, 2021, report that summarized the bureau’s J6 investigation up to that point. The extremely faded report is difficult to read, but it appears to state: “FBI WF and USCP have identified a person of interest who may be a match to the description of the individual placing the bombs, and continue efforts to identify through surveillance footage.”
🚨NEW🚨 The FBI released records yesterday, showing that by Jan. 10, 2021, the bureau had "identified a person of interest who may be a match to the description of the individual" who placed the pipe bombs near the RNC and DNC
The FBI declined to comment in response to Headline USA’s questions about what happened to the person of interest, including whether the person was cleared or is still under investigation.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Intercept, Scripps News and NBC News have all sued Butler County for refusing to release 911 recordings from the July 13 rally in which former President Donald Trump was nearly assassinated.
Butler County had denied all three outlets’ requests for the 911 calls on the grounds that Pennsylvanian public records statute that generally exempts 911 recordings from disclosure. However, Pennsylvania law also states that police can release 911 recordings that are in the public interest.
The media outlets’ lawsuit argues that the 911 calls are obviously in the public interest, and that the Butler Office of Open Records should have ordered them for disclosure.
“It is difficult to fathom a case where the public interest in disclosure is more obvious, given the political, historical, and national significance of this assassination attempt,” The Intercept’s court petition stated.
“The voting public, regardless of political affiliation, has a keen interest in learning more about the events that transpired at the Butler rally and the government’s response to the same.”
Headline USA faces a similar issue in its quest to obtain a recording of the 911 call Thomas Crooks’s parents made on the day he allegedly tried to kill Trump.
Bethel Police denied the request on Aug. 21, citing Section 708(b)(18) of the Right to Know Law, which exempts 911 recordings from public disclosure. However, the exact same RTKL paragraph cited by Bethel Police includes the public-interest clause.
Headline USA appealed the denial to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, and made the argument to Appeals Officer Kathleen Higgins that it’s in the public interest to release the parents’ phone call.
Surprisingly, Bethel Park Police nor Alleghany County didn’t make any submissions before the appeals deadline last Thursday. But after Headline USA wrote an article on the matter Monday, Bethel Park made an appearance and asked for a deadline extension to respond—which was granted, despite the fact that the deadline already passed.
Bethel Park Police signaled that they will make a similar argument that Butler County invoked against The Intercept: “Specifically, the Department believes that the appeal should be denied because the requester is seeking a 911 recording and, to the extent it exists, the OOR is without authority to compel the Department to exercise its discretion in favor of disclosure,” the department said in a Tuesday filing.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) More than 3,000 9/11 family members have reportedly signed a letter to both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, demanding that they hold Saudi Arabia for its role in the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history.
“The pledge, with over 3,000 signatories, asks that you commit to not endorse any normalization deal involving Saudi Arabia unless it fully addresses the role of the Saudi Arabian government in the 9/11 attacks,” Brett Eagleson, president of 9/11 Justice, said in his letter, which was reported by Fox News Digital.
9/11 families wrote a letter to Trump, telling him not to deal with the Saudis until they address their role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks pic.twitter.com/hlSdldYhYt
“With the 23rd anniversary approaching, a time that marks the loss of 2,977 of our family members and loved ones, we hope you will take this opportunity to join with us in our quest for justice and accountability.”
This 9/11 anniversary comes after a year of damning evidence was revealed against the Saudis was revealed in civil court. That evidence included a long-suppressed video showing Saudi intelligence asset Omar al-Bayoumi “casing” Capitol Hill in June 1999—months before al-Qaeda made the decision to include Washington DC in its terrorist plot. Numerous investigators believe the Capitol building was the target of Flight 93, which instead crashed in Pennsylvania.
More recently, last month it was revealed that sketches plotting the 9/11 attack belonged to al-Bayoumi.
Pretty interesting development in the long-running 9/11 civil litigation. It was revealed earlier this month that attack plans pictured on the left belong to the man on the right–a Saudi agent and alleged CIA asset pic.twitter.com/wNTvS0GTpB
Families of 9/11 victims argued in a 71-page brief filed on May 7 that al-Bayoumi operated under the directions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Along with “casing” the Capitol, he served as the handler for two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar.
“The evidence is clear that Saudi Arabia deployed its officials and agents to serve in an illegal government enterprise that was extensively intertwined with terrorism, so that the agents were acting within their core mission when they helped integrate the hijackers into the United States,” 9/11 plaintiffs said in a May 7 court brief.
But despite that evidence, Saudi officials have been welcomed into the U.S. with open arms. Saudis even visited New York City this week, ahead of the 23rd anniversary, to meet with golfer Tiger Woods and the PGA Tour.
“Tomorrow, we commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, yet here we are today, in New York City, down the street from Ground Zero, and the PGA Tour and Tiger Woods are negotiating with them,” Eagleson said on Tuesday in a separate letter.
The Saudis lack of accountability may be due to their cozy relationships with the U.S. deep state. A 2017 FBI report, which was filed as evidence in the civil lawsuit earlier this year, said al-Bayoumi was operating directly under then Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan Alsaud—a close friend of the Bush family.
Additionally, new evidence in recent years has suggested that not only was al-Bayoumi a Saudi agent; he was also an asset of the CIA. That information has been coming from the proceedings against 9/11 defendants at Guantanamo Bay.
According to Office of Military Commissions investigator Don Canestraro, at least two FBI agents told him that the CIA had attempted to recruit two of the hijackers as informants. The CIA was directing its recruiting efforts through al-Bayoumi, according to Canestraro.
(Headline USA) A poignant phrase echoes when 9/11 victims’ relatives gather each year to remember the loved ones they lost in the terror attacks.
“I never got to meet you.”
It is the sound of generational change at ground zero, where relatives read out victims’ names on every anniversary of the attacks. Nearly 3,000 people were killed when al-Qaida hijackers crashed four jetliners into the twin towers, the Pentagon and a field in southwest Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.
Some names are read out by children or young adults who were born after the strikes. Last year’s observance featured 28 such young people among more than 140 readers. Young people are expected again at this year’s ceremony Wednesday.
Some are the children of victims whose partners were pregnant. More of the young readers are victims’ nieces, nephews or grandchildren. They have inherited stories, photos and a sense of solemn responsibility.
Being a “9/11 family” reverberates through generations, and commemorating and understanding the Sept. 11 attacks one day will be up to a world with no first-hand memory of them.
“It’s like you’re passing the torch on,” says Allan Aldycki, 13.
He read the names of his grandfather and several other people the last two years, and plans to do so on on Wednesday. Aldycki keeps mementoes in his room from his grandfather Allan Tarasiewicz, a firefighter.
The teen told the audience last year that he’s heard so much about his grandfather that it feels like he knew him, “but still, I wish I had a chance to really know you,” he added.
Allan volunteered to be a reader because it makes him feel closer to his grandfather, and he hopes to have children who’ll participate.
“It’s an honor to be able to teach them because you can let them know their heritage and what to never forget,” he said by phone from central New York. He said he already finds himself teaching peers who know little or nothing about 9/11.
When it comes time for the ceremony, he looks up information about the lives of each person whose name he’s assigned to read.
“He reflects on everything and understands the importance of what it means to somebody,” his mother, Melissa Tarasiewicz, said.
Reciting the names of the dead is a tradition that extends beyond ground zero. War memorials honor fallen military members by speaking their names aloud. Some Jewish organizations host readings of Holocaust victims’ names on the international day of remembrance, Yom Hashoah.
The names of the 168 people killed in the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City are read annually at the memorial there.
On Sept. 11 anniversaries, the Pentagon’s ceremony includes military members or officials reading the names of the 184 people killed there. The Flight 93 National Memorial has victims’ relatives and friends read the list of the 40 passengers and crew members whose lives ended at the rural site near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The hourslong observance at the 9/11 Memorial in New York is almost exclusively dedicated to the names of the 2,977 victims at all three sites, plus the six people killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. All are read by relatives who volunteer and are chosen by lottery.
Each is given a subset of names to render aloud. Readers also generally speak briefly about their own lost kin, frequently in touching detail.
“I think often about how, if you were still here, you would be one of my best friends, looking at colleges with me, getting me out of trouble with Mom and Dad, hanging out at the Jersey Shore,” Capri Yarosz said last year of her slain uncle, New York firefighter Christopher Michael Mozzillo.
Now 17, she grew up with a homemade baby book about him and a family that still mentions him in everyday conversation.
“Chris would have loved that” is a phrase often heard around the house.
She has read twice at the trade center ceremony.
“It means a lot to me that I can kind of keep alive my uncle’s name and just keep reading everybody else’s name, so that more of the upcoming generations will know,” she said by phone from her family’s home in central New Jersey. “I feel good that I can pass down the importance of what happened.”
Her two younger sisters also have read names, and one is preparing to do so again Wednesday. Their mother, Pamela Yarosz, has never been able to steel herself to sign up.
“I don’t have that strength. It’s too hard for me,” says Pamela Yarosz, who is Mozzillo’s sister. “They’re braver.”
By now, many of the children of 9/11 victims—such as Melissa Tarasiewicz, who was just out of high school when her father died—have long since grown up. But about 100 were born after the attacks killed one of their parents, and are now young adults.
“Though we never met, I am honored to carry your name and legacy with me. I thank you for giving me this life and family,” Manuel DaMota Jr. said of his father, a woodworker and project manager, during last year’s ceremony.
One young reader after another at the event commemorated aunts, uncles, great-uncles, grandfathers and grandmothers whom the children have missed throughout their lives.
“My whole life, my dad has said I reminded him of you.”
“I wish you got to take me fishing.”
“I wish I had more of you than just a picture on a frame.”
“Even though I never got to meet you, I will never forget you.”
Sure, there may have been a few whoppers, exaggerations and omissions from either podium, and one’s perception of who had the most lies—or at least the most egregious ones—is, no doubt, directly proportionate to one’s perception of how many biological genders exist in nature.
Nonetheless, enterprising fact checkers who thought to cut and paste the previous copy from their June 27 editions may have been able to call it an early night since many of the responses, attacks and evasions coming from both sides seemed essentially the same as in Trump’s CNN debate against President Joe Biden.
By and large, despite what the mainstream media is likely to claim, that plays to Trump’s favor. Having spent the better part of the past four years on the campaign trail, and making his record seventh appearance on the presidential debate stage, the onus was not on Trump to present anything fresh and new, as much as it was on Harris, who is not even two months into her campaign.
Not only has she been accused, however, of plagiarizing large parts of her platform directly from Biden, it became clear on Tuesday that she was even recycling some of the same stale attacks used by the senile 81-year-old.
Trump ably defended his positions on several areas, such as the stolen 2020 election. As for other topics, he showed yet again that he would not be baited into gotcha questions on bogusly framed issues about climate change and Jan. 6—redirecting his responses back to his preferred topics, including illegal immigration, when they arose.
The moderators gently nudged, but knew better than to turn it more adversarial than it already was. While the questions may have been largely loaded against Trump, the actual moderation thus favored him, often allowing him to have the last word.
Trump mostly maintained his discipline in not interrupting Harris, and was even able to zing her twice for interrupting him, appropriating her own “I’m speaking” attack line and using it against her in an effective flex of authority.
There may have been a few moments where Trump, had he done some homework, might have spent more time putting Harris on the defense—for example, when posed with a question over his role in fomenting Jan. 6 rallygoers to enter the U.S. Capitol, he might have specifically slammed the insurrection-like disruption that Harris encouraged during the Senate Judiciary hearings for future Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Overall, though, the strategy of tying Harris to the Biden administration and emphasizing that there was nothing new about her campaign demanded that his line of attack stay largely the same from one debate to the next.
Only once did Trump miss a crucial opportunity to strike at Harris where it mattered, by potentially turning her repugnant identity politics back against her.
When he was asked why he believed it was “appropriate to weigh in on the racial identity” of his political rival, Trump seemed uncharacteristically stumped.
The question from moderator David Muir was a gutsy one, given that it referenced a hostile exchange between Trump and another ABC News correspondent, Rachel Scott, during a convention for black journalists in July.
In both cases, it was ABC News, not Trump, that appeared to be preoccupied with racial politics and with pinning down Trump’s opinion of Harris’s racial identity. Trump’s broader point during the exchange with Scott was that Harris has spent her career as a sort of political chameleon, changing her persona to fit the audience.
In responding to Muir, however, he simply punted on it altogether, deferring to Harris, who clearly had a rehearsed response teed up attacking Trump for his racial rhetoric.
Yet, it was a golden moment to expose just how radical Harris really is, particularly after a viral video recently showed her agreeing with a group of black men in a barbershop that laws should be written specifically addressing the wants and needs of black people—in potential violation of the equal-protection clause in the 14th Amendment.
🔥🚨BREAKING NEWS: Footage has been released of Vice President Kamala Harris being confronted by a Black man when she visited a barbershop. Harris attempted to host a barbershop conversation with Black men and ended up getting criticized ‘for her noticeable lack of policies for… pic.twitter.com/GRuFMpRSGp
Trump’s answer to Muir’s question should have gone something like this:
“Frankly, David, from where I stand it seems like ABC News is more preoccupied with Vice President Harris’s race than anyone. You are the second reporter from your network to ask me that, and as you mentioned, I noted in my response to the first that she has, throughout her career, benefited from a chameleon-like ability to change her identity, her beliefs, her accent and everything else based on the audience she is performing in front of.
“I, for one, couldn’t care less about her race. It makes no difference the skin color if you see yourself as an American first—and I believe that is why many traditionally Democratic voters in the black community, the Hispanic community and other groups have embraced the ‘Make America Great Again’ movement, because they aren’t expected to conform to something that does not speak to their fundamental values, for a party that has a long track record of exploiting and then forgetting about them.
“But, if pretending to be something other than a Berkeley-born Marxist helps Vice President Harris to win votes, that’s understandable. Let’s face it, you didn’t write this question for me, you wrote it for her to spout off some attack that she’s been holed up in her hotel room rehearsing, because other than ABC News, it is Kamala Harris who is most interested in talking about racial divisions. So let’s talk.
“Kamala, you have a track record of supporting radical social-justice movements like the Minnesota Freedom Fund. You have indicated that you supported slavery reparations—something so controversial that even your old friend Gavin Newsom had to pull the plug. You sided with Jussie Smollett in his notorious race hoax. And you agreed in a recent barber-shop forum that you would support writing separate laws for black people. So, given your obsession with racial identity, why should white voters trust you not to implement an extreme and divisive agenda that would give preferential treatment to minorities?
“Barack Obama, Joe Biden, both promised to bring unity, and both lied. Instead, they sowed partisan and racial divisions for their own political and financial benefit. Given the number of lies you’ve told onstage here tonight, why should anyone buy into your phony promise of bipartisanship, which goes against every indication of who you really are?”
Pouring cold water all over Harris’s race-baiting talking points undoubtedly would have left her melted into a cackling puddle on the floor like the wicked witch she is.
