Of the many challenges for the Harris campaign, there are two big false narratives about Vice President Kamala Harris being pushed by the anti anti-Trump universe and some in the mainstream media. One is that Donald Trump might be bad, but Harris won't tell the American people [00:00:18] where she stands on the issues. All right, so this morning, the host of Morning Joe went on a crusade to defend Kamala Harris not just from potential critics, but from anyone who would ever dare to ask her what her policy positions are. Instead, they argue that because Trump is so bad, [00:00:36] Americans shouldn't even care about how Harris would govern as president. We're going to get more into the Morning Joe clips in a second, but first, we need to back up a little bit. During the segment we just showed you, Mika Brzezinski praised fellow MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle for making a similar argument when she was [00:00:54] on Real Time with Bill Maher this weekend. Rule was going at it with New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who argued in a recent op ed that Harris has not done enough to explain her policy positions. Here is a snippet of their back and forth. [00:01:09] Stephens started off saying it's not too much to ask Kamala. Say, are you for a Palestinian state if Hamas is going to run that state, yes or no? Rahul responded, okay, let's say you don't like her answer. Are you going to vote for Donald Trump? Stephens no I'm not. [00:01:26] I just said I'm not going to vote for him. Rahul continued, Kamala Harris isn't running for perfect. She's running against Trump. We have two choices. And so there are some things you might not know her answer to. And in 2024, unlike 2016, for a lot of the American people, we know [00:01:45] exactly what Trump will do, who he is, and the kind of threat he is to democracy. Stephens responded, Stephanie, the problem that a lot of people have with Kamala is we don't know her answer to anything. Okay? Rule said. But you know his answer to everything. [00:02:02] The Morning Joe host took that basic argument and ran with it, going so far as to accuse The New York Times of all outlets of not only being biased against Harris, but trying to make a Trump presidency more palatable. Take a look at this. Compare what she said. [00:02:19] And again, we can go through the issues with Donald Trump. Yeah. Whether it's that rambling answer on child care, whether it was a nonsensical answer during the debate. And by the way, she wants to debate again, Donald Trump doesn't because he doesn't talk about the issues. [00:02:34] He can't talk about the issues. But again, there's this false equivalency from the anti anti-Trump crowd and also from the mainstream media. Something's happening out there where where people are trying to flatten. And it's not just the anti anti Trumpers. [00:02:51] It's also people in the mainstream media. They're going yes Donald Trump. He's saying all of these crazy things. But did you did you say that? And there were two there are two people this weekend with significant columns going. But did you see her answer to the local Philadelphia question, [00:03:09] where she actually gave a three point answer and she talked about, you know, $50,000 for start up small businesses, the anti anti Trumpers who just can't admit they are going to vote for a man who tried to overthrow American democracy, who did what they did on January 6th. [00:03:27] They are desperately trying to create the permission structure so they can vote for a man who said he was going to terminate the Constitution. So Scarborough is correct that when asked about how she would lower prices in that local news interview, Harris did name a few specific policies, [00:03:44] but the fact that she rambled about her biography for one minute and 53 seconds beforehand, then spent much less time on the actual policies, maybe cheapened or watered down her answer more than she intended it to. Scarborough wasn't done, though he continued to insist [00:04:01] that the mainstream media is out to get Kamala Harris for some unexplained reason. Let's watch. Seriously, you're going to talk about Kamala Harris on issues? Yeah, you're going to. You're going to compare Kamala Harris on issues negatively to Donald Trump, [00:04:18] not just this campaign, but over the past nine years, being ill equipped to answer any question. Do you have no shame? Do you really have no shame? Are you so desperate to not vote for Kamala Harris that you will actually twist [00:04:35] and contort yourself so badly that you undermine decades of good work? Because that's what's happening right now. And we can see through you. So I do agree that Democratic candidates, to an extent, are held to a higher standard than the Republican Trump candidate. [00:04:54] But the voters are different. It's a different audience that they have to play to. And the Democrats, I really wish that they would have learned by now that it's not enough to not be Donald Trump. They still have to come with all of their their information, all of their their stances on everything, all of their plans, all of their policies, etc.. [00:05:13] Jake, when Kamala critics talk about Blue Anon, I think it's funny because they're in part acknowledging how cultish the QAnon movement is and by extension, the MAGA movement. I don't think we see nearly that level of sycophancy on the left or even in the center. But let's not pretend like it's not there to a certain extent. [00:05:31] Is Stephanie Ruhle demonstrating part of that Blue Anon phenomenon here? Hey, don't scroll away, come back, come back. Because before the video continues, we just want to urge you to lend your support to TYT. You power our honest reporting. [00:05:46] You do it at t.com/team and we love you for it. Yeah so I agree with Stephanie Ruhle and Joe Scarborough and parts and disagree in parts. Let's see if any of it surprises you guys. So number one, I agree with them on Trump mentally unstable. [00:06:03] I'm not going to take a back seat to how little respect I have for Donald Trump to anyone. I bet I could beat Joe Scarborough in a in a debate on, who dislikes Donald Trump more because he just dislikes him? Because he's like, oh, I want the establishment [00:06:20] to be able to reap all the rewards, and Trump only wants it for himself. Well, I don't like either one of you guys, and I think the people should get it. But I dislike Trump even more because I'm a populist and this guy took a movement that needed to happen right or left about populism and then perverted it to me, [00:06:39] me me me me, me me by my gold sneakers. Come on man. Pathetic. So do I. Does that mean that I agree with them on Kamala Harris? Shouldn't have to answer questions. Absurd. No, I don't agree to that. That's so dumb. She's running for president. [00:06:56] Of course she should answer questions. She should answer endless questions. So, number one, it's wrong. Philosophically and ideologically. But number two, it's also wrong strategically. When you're hiding from the press, it makes it look like you have something to hide. [00:07:11] It makes you look weak. It's such a bad strategy. It's establishment. Corporate Democrat 101. Oh, no. We don't have to tell people anything except Donald Trump. [00:07:27] Bad. Yeah, brother, I got that covered. That's not the interesting part. What do you stand for? Not going to tell you is the worst political strategy. So she could put him away. Right now she's after the debate. That bump is very, very real. She's now past the, the margin of error. [00:07:47] She's at about 5 or 6 56. Lead nationally. She does interviews. She does well. She can put them away instead. Hear me now, quote me later. She starts to slide back down because Trump is all over the press. She's not doing any press. And now, by the way, every time she does press, the pressure mounts [00:08:05] because it's such a rare appearance. Whereas I talk for on air for about 2 to 3 hours every single day. Have I made mistakes before? Yeah, I've made a million mistakes over these last two decades. Right. Does anybody really care other than when they're trying to smear me when I'm running for office? ET cetera. And then they'll dig and dig and dig. [00:08:22] Oh, we found something wrong, he said 13 years ago. But overall, no one cares because we keep going and going and going. But when she's like, I will now do an interview, everybody's like, on pins and needles. Oh no, no, she took too long, there's something wrong with her, etc. [00:08:38] So stop it, get out there and do 10,000 times more interviews. Make your case. Do you want to win? If you want to win, you go make your case. You say, this is why you should vote for me and sent? And can you please let Tim Walz out of a cage? We got excited about Tim Walz, and then you stuffed him into a cage. [00:08:56] So don't talk. Don't talk. What the hell is the point of having Tim Walz if you're not going to let him talk? Okay, so no rule in Scarborough preposterously wrong about that. Okay. Now the third thing. This is where it gets interesting. But are they right about the false equivalency? [00:09:12] Definitely. If Kamala Harris takes too long to give an answer. Oh, and I told you about words I was worried about. This ain't word salad. Before her answers for some period of time didn't make any sense. She would go around and around and it would never get to a point. So we've been honest with you all along, but right now, she takes a little long [00:09:31] to get to the point about policy. Who cares? The other guy said that he didn't mind if his vice president was murdered. This is a tough question. No, it's not a tough question at all. The other guy said when he lost Just because I lost. [00:09:47] We should terminate the Constitution. This is not a tough question. So nevertheless, if you're running for president, you have a duty to share your ideas and policies with you. By the way, Bret Stephens didn't do our side any good with that example of, well, I mean, I really want to ask her a gotcha question. [00:10:05] If you really want a Palestinian state, how about if Hamas runs it, you're a terrorist. That's a gotcha question. That's so dumb. It's like the worst example you could possibly give. If all you're going to do is ask her stupid ass gotcha questions on behalf of Israel, then maybe. Maybe I'm wrong and they shouldn't take any of your stupid questions. [00:10:23] So look, overall though, despite that awful example, I do agree with Bret Stephens, of course. And by the way, if I'm running for office and they ask a stupid gotcha question like that to me, I have a perfectly good answer. You know why? Because I know what my positions are, and I know what gotcha questions are, [00:10:40] and I know how to get past them because I'm a grown up. Yeah. I mean, I wonder if she learned about how to hide her VP away from Joe Biden, because that's kind of what he did with her the entire time he was president until now. But yeah, obviously the standards are different, though. I remember, Elizabeth Warren, every time this this kind of, you know, [00:10:59] unbalanced dichotomy kind of comes up. I always remember Elizabeth Warren when she was running for president. She had binders. She had plans on plans and plans. Donald Trump had zero plans, but nobody even really asked him to hear what his plans were. They just he he would say something crazy at a rally. [00:11:16] He would say, we're going to build a wall. How are you going to pay for it? Mexico will pay for it. How are you going to get them to pay for it? No answer. He had no way of making Mexico pay for it. Whenever he did finally give a response, it was kind of nonsensical. It didn't make a whole lot of sense. And the Mexican president had to come out and say, no, we're not doing any of that. [00:11:32] And he was a lot less nice about it than what I just said. But, again, we go back to the audiences, right? The Democratic voters expect more from their leaders, right? And we're not going to be as easily bought. We're not going to fall into a lot of, you know, not to overuse the word, [00:11:49] but like the cultishness of what's happening on the right, right now where nobody can really say anything against Donald Trump, not even, you know, congressional Republicans who have been seated members of the Republican Party for much longer than Trump was even thinking about being involved in politics and on the right, [00:12:08] or, I'm sorry, on the left, because we don't have that. I think we hold our leaders or our presumptive leaders to a much higher standard. We expect a lot more from them. We want them to be intelligent. We want to hear what they're going to do, and we want to be able to make our decision as to whether or not to vote for them accordingly. [00:12:25] The reality, the sad reality is that we do have a two party system. I know that there are third party candidates out there, but we still functionally have a two party system. Maybe that will change one day, but today that isn't the case. And in a two party system, a lot of times it does come down to I don't want [00:12:42] that person to be the president at all. So I'm going to vote for that other person. And it's not great. It's it feels like we don't have a lot of options as, as a democracy. And the truth is, we don't a lot of other democracies, they do have a multi-party system. [00:12:58] They have their benefits and they have their not benefits as well. But here in the United States, it really comes down to I can either vote for the lesser of two evils, which has become a very common refrain these days over the last several election cycles. Or we could just opt out entirely, which isn't a great option for a lot [00:13:16] of people either, because, you know, people want to vote, I think. Right. I think people would like to participate in the democratic process and understand that that is a a privilege to be able to do that, to vote. So that's where we are. I think Kamala Harris can do a much better job than she has been doing. [00:13:33] As far as talking about that policy and giving the people what they want, as far as just hearing what she stands for. I think right now she's trying to play this game of trying to appease as many people as she possibly can get. As many voters hit as many demographics as she can. [00:13:49] But the problem with that strategy is that you're going to have to say something at some point that is going to alienate people. Two things can always be true at once. You can't say I really support the Palestinian people, but also I'm of course, I'm going to keep giving money and arms to Israel. [00:14:05] Right. And that's kind of what she's trying to do right now, not just with that issue, but I think that's why she's been so vague on a lot of her policy positions so far. Yeah. Jake, any final words before we go to break? - Yeah. - Last couple of things. Look, guys, she's an establishment Democrat. They talk out of both sides of their mouth. [00:14:20] Both establishment Democrats and Republicans for a living. So why do they do that? It's exactly what Yaz said. The donors want you to do one thing. The voters want you to do a different thing. So they tell the voters one thing, they tell the donors another thing. But the bottom line is, where does the money go? That's the only thing that matters. And it always goes to the donors. [00:14:38] But look on policy, even on Israel. Okay, so Bret Stephens wants to ask her that gotcha question. Well, oh, yeah. You want the Palestinians to have a state but aren't. Isn't every Palestinian group a bunch of dirty terrorists? And I'm going to do a gotcha and say you're against Israel. All right, who cares? Handle that question. [00:14:55] But then are you also going to ask Donald Trump about reporting in the Israeli press about how his oil donor, Miriam Adelson, wants him to allow Israel to annex the West Bank? No one's asking that question. So can you please ask him that question? He's all over the press. Why don't you ask him? [00:15:11] Isn't it weird that nobody has asked him that question and God knows what he'll say? Oh yeah. Of course. Miriam gave me a strong endorsement. That's why I let him do whatever they want with the West Bank or whatever he's going to say. They never actually. And then on policy, she's released a whole bunch of policies. Look, she should do more interviews to make her case. [00:15:28] Not because to make the media happy to get her case to the voters. But has she announced some policies? Definitely. Are those policies more substantive than Donald Trump? What world do we live in? Donald Trump's policies are nearly nonexistent and didn't [00:15:45] like immigrants and closed border. What do you mean, closed border? What does that mean? Tell me. Give me more details. I closed that drill, baby. Drill? No matter what the question is, he says drill, baby drill. They asked him about housing prices. He's like drill, baby, drill. That's oil, schmuck. We're talking about housing. [00:16:01] Oh, yeah. China. I'm doing a tariff. What? Housing. Concentrate, moron. So is there a false equivalency, a giant one? So, Kamala Harris, I'm ready to hold her to account, as you can tell. Probably harsher than anybody in media, but I also do the same for Donald Trump. [00:16:19] And the order of magnitude is 1 to 1000. He's a blithering idiot that doesn't know a single thing about policy, has no specifics on any of his policies. He sounds like a deranged lunatic. They're eating the cats and Drugs and their executing babies. [00:16:39] I don't like my vice president. I lost the election and then he didn't try to cheat. I don't like him. Maybe he deserves to be murdered. Okay. Oh, wow. Should we ask him about how the policy of how would you murder your vice president? I mean, come on, get out of here. [00:16:55] So, as much as I disagree with Scarborough on a thousand things, and he's wrong about constantly want to protect his precious Biden and Kamala Harris, he is right that the false equivalency is enormous. Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. [00:17:11] Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. You've got emojis of me Anna John Jr. So those are super fun. But you also get playback of our exclusive member only shows [00:17:28] and specials right after they air. So all of that, all you got to do is click that join button right underneath the video. Thank you.