The grumbling that Kamala Harris is avoiding reporters like the plague led to a headline on Fox News that demanded: “Liberal media minions need to do their jobs.”
Ah, but they are doing their jobs. Their assignment, as they see it, is to stop Donald Trump from becoming president and no effort is being spared.
If they had another goal, they would be furious as Harris ignores them and their questions. But meekly accepting her cold shoulder is all part of a dishonest day’s work.
They will do whatever it takes to elect her.
All of which means Trump shouldn’t hold his breath waiting for Harris to be exposed during a tough round of interviews.
He may be right, as he said Thursday, that “she can’t do a news conference.” He said that during a long question-and-answer session he held to draw a contrast with her.
But he, too, misses the larger point: Harris could do an endless loop of interviews and press conferences and it probably wouldn’t matter.
She’ll choose friendly outlets where Democrats with press passes will throw her big juicy softballs. If she swings wildly and misses, they’ll declare it a home run.
If she dishes up one of her zany word salads, she’ll be deemed a genius beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals.
And her annoying cackle will be proclaimed endearing.
Fixed on the prize
America is experiencing a remarkable series of events, featuring the shooting of the Republican candidate by a would-be assassin and the pressured removal of the Democratic president from his reelection campaign, yet the media hasn’t blinked.
They remain fixed on the prize of making certain Trump doesn’t get back to the Oval Office.
The mission includes turning away from the attempt to assassinate him. You don’t have to be a historian to marvel at how little interest there is about the background and motivation of the 20-year-old shooter, Thomas Crooks.
Nor is there much detail about an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump that, we recently learned, had been broken up by the FBI just the day before the Pennsylvania shooting.
Crooks reportedly had three foreign email accounts but we are assured by anonymous “official” sources speaking to leftist outlets there is no connection between the two plots.
PBS, a reliable indicator of the radical mindset, put it this way: “US officials acknowledged last month that a threat on Donald Trump’s life from Iran prompted additional security in the days before a Pennsylvania rally in which Trump was injured by a gunman’s bullet. That July 13 shooting, carried out by a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man, was unrelated to the Iran threat . . . a law enforcement official said.”
So there was “additional security” in Pennsylvania, but still Crooks was able to fire at Trump from an open rooftop just 130 yards away?
This, of course, is the same Secret Service that dropped its probe into a bag of cocaine found at the Biden White House because it couldn’t find the perp in two weeks.
The Keystone Kops were more diligent.
If the assassination plots involved Biden or any Democrat, the media would treat them as earth-shattering stories.
Every rumor, speculation and tidbit of information would be blasted out in breathtaking fashion about a national security crisis.
Unfair play
Republicans would be lashed with harsh denunciations about overheated political rhetoric and accused of sparking violence.
But when Dems and the media repeatedly declare Trump a threat to democracy and then he narrowly avoids death, and when a foreign power also assigns an agent to kill him, the page is quickly turned.
There is no outrage toward Iran, nor does the media express any curiosity about why Iran wants to kill Trump but not Biden.
The reason is obvious, but to spell it out would be to expose Biden’s appeasement policies. Recall that Trump droned Iran’s terror chief and put tough sanctions on the mullahs’ oil, while Biden lifted the sanctions and keeps trying to bribe Iran to rejoin the failed nuclear pact that Trump scuttled.
Even after Iran loosed its terror proxies on Israel and the groups killed three American service members in Jordan, wounded others in Iraq and took Americans hostage in Israel, Biden pulls his punches and demands Israel do the same.
Then came Friday’s reports that Iran is using fake news sites and other online activity to interfere in the fall election.
Not until the third paragraph does the AP note that “US officials have previously hinted that Iran particularly opposes former President Donald Trump.”
A more honest way to write the same story would be to say upfront that Iran wants to help elect Harris. That’s how it would be written if Iran was trying to help elect Trump.
Here’s another comparison: If JD Vance were accused of “stolen valor” by his former military comrades, would the media circle the wagons around him the way they are protecting Tim Walz against the same charges?
The question answers itself.
Sadly, even tragically, there is nothing new in the media jihad against Trump. It started in 2016 and hasn’t stopped.
The big outlets tried to drag Hillary Clinton over the finish line, but couldn’t do it. So many newsrooms, so many tears.
In 2020, they were happy to let Biden hide in his basement. They knew then he was in decline, but believed it better to have a decrepit Democrat in the White House than the evil Trump.
During his tenure, Biden set a modern record for the fewest press conferences and interviews. It should have been treated as a scandal, but even as Biden ignored them, reporters ignored his cognitive decline.
Different standards
When the president scolded the press for mild criticism, they remained loyal to his re-election.
He said publicly his son Hunter Biden did nothing wrong, and they didn’t bother to note that it was improper for a president to comment on a case pending before his Justice Department.
He let it be known he wanted Trump prosecuted and thrown in jail, which should have been met with thunderous outrage, but instead, crickets.
Actually, it wasn’t crickets. There was a very loud applause because that’s what the media wants, too.
They stuck with Biden until it was clear he would lose, then flipped on a dime and led the charge to replace him.
They didn’t know who Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the megadonors would replace him with — and didn’t care.
Any Dem who increased the odds of beating Trump would do.
To judge from reports about Harris’ “joyful” campaign, many in the media are giddy that she is generating so much enthusiasm and, according to polls, is now beating Trump.
That makes it extra delusional for anyone, including him, to believe the press will jeopardize her chances by holding the two candidates to the same standards.
If Trump is going to win, he’ll have to do it the way he did it in 2016: despite the media.