OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Vice President Kamala Harris has been receiving waves of criticism for what many view as a “hateful” closing message to voters earlier this week with a message that seemed devoid of policy discussions and focused more at portraying her opponent, former President Donald Trump, in a negative light.
In an interview with Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum, The Federalist editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway remarked that Harris’ choice of closing message was “curious” and did not seem to move the needle much in terms of explaining why Americans should vote for her.
As the host brought in Hemingway, MacCallum noted that President Joe Biden earlier in the day appeared to call all of Trump’s supporters “garbage” in response to a joke about trash on the island of Puerto Rico from an insult comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last weekend.
“It’s very hard to believe that there wasn’t even an apology from Joe Biden toward Kamala Harris for what was said,” Hemingway began. “And, you know, you say Kamala Harris distanced herself from these remarks, but she didn’t really do much distancing, and she made a false claim saying she doesn’t like to disparage voters who aren’t voting for her.
“The problem is that so many people in her campaign, and she herself, have spent much of the last few months calling people who don’t support her campaign racist, bigots. Last week, they were really leaning hard into Nazis. Her running mate today called supporters of Donald Trump Nazis. And so it’s hard to distance yourself from President Biden when so much of your campaign messaging also seems to be similar,” the editor-in-chief continued.
MacCallum then played a clip of Trump on stage during a rally in Allentown, Pa., responding to Biden’s “garbage” remark.
“Garbage, I think, is worse, right? (…) Please forgive him, for he not knoweth what he said. (…) These people, it’s terrible, terrible, terrible to say a thing like that, but he really doesn’t know. He really, honestly, he doesn’t,” Trum said.
“But in — in reality, President Biden, as you just referred to, in terms of the Biden-Harris Administration, has been going after Trump supporters for a really long time. Here’s a quick montage to remind people,” MacCallum responded before playing a clip of Biden making obscene, divisive references to Trump and his legions of supporters.
“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. (…) This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick-and-mortar of our democratic institutions. But it’s also a threat to the character of our nation. (…) He talks about the blood of America as being poisoned, echoing the same exact language used in Nazi Germany. (…) The MAGA Republicans, led by a defeated president, is trying to steal history,” Biden said in the clips.
“They seem to double down, really. They must feel that this works for them, Mollie,” MacCallum said.
“Well, it is a tight election. But Kamala Harris is running so far behind where Joe Biden was 4 years ago and where Hillary Clinton was 8 years ago. This is a very curious closing message, though. You look at what you just showed a few minutes ago. Donald Trump says — his closing message is: ‘I’ll fix it,'” Hemingway said.
“That kind of gives people an idea of why they might vote for him. Her closing message is, ‘You’re a horrible person if you don’t vote for me.’ And I’m not sure — I mean, it might work we’ll have to — we’ll have to find out next week, but it doesn’t seem to be as hopeful or joyful as — as she claims she wants to be,” she added.
“Yeah. Why do you think we saw that shift?” MacCallum asked. “Because she was actually at her highest point right out of her convention, and right after, we saw what I call the big switcheroo, the switch of the candidates. That was her highest point. So why do you think that she has gravitated to this sort of darker message in the later months?”
“Well, campaigns always seem to embody the president, the presidential candidate. And there is something incoherent about her own message. And it seems to be filtering down to the campaign. But there’s this other thing that also is true, which is Donald Trump has some of the highest favorables he’s ever had,” said Hemingway. “And that means that she’s trying to tear those down right now.”
MacCallum went on to say that Trump’s favorability rating in the most recent Fox News poll is 53 percent his highest ever even when he was in office.
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