MAUREEN CALLAHAN: I'm starting to believe there's a media conspiracy to get Kamala elected! When WILL an interviewer ask the question that would finally expose her fraudulent campaign?
Kamala Harris was challenged on several issues by Fox News's Bret Baier on Wednesday night, but her husband's very troubled history with women was not among them. How was this not the first question?
What about Doug?
Kamala Harris was challenged on several issues by Fox News's Bret Baier on Wednesday night, but her husband's very troubled history with women was not among them.
How was this not the first question?
We've heard Kamala's canned answers on everything else ad nauseam. But when it comes to a multi-sourced claim that in May 2012, Doug Emhoff hit his then-girlfriend in the face so hard that she spun around — in full view of a valet line outside an A-list gala in France — Harris apparently has nothing to answer for.
Democrats are the party of 'believe all women', of 'protect all women', and abortion rights especially.
The obvious question is: Does Kamala, the prosecutor who boasts she was motivated by the sexual abuse suffered by her teenage best friend, believe this woman?
Does she believe the nanny, who Doug Emhoff allegedly impregnated during his first marriage?
After all, Doug has admitted the affair but hasn't denied the pregnancy.
Nor has he denied reports that he paid the nanny $80,000 to go away and made her sign an NDA. He has not denied reports that the LAPD was called to the nanny's house, at the time she was allegedly pregnant, for a level-three emergency — meaning a life-threatening situation.
Baier's Wednesday interview was commendable on several fronts, not least his willingness to push back on Harris's filibustering and her blather, meant to paper over gaps in her knowledge and eat up valuable time — time that Baier says was cut short by the vice president and her team, who arrived to an already brief interview well after its start time.
As Harris sat in a defensive posture, legs crossed and wrists wrapped over knees, Baier asked this great question, posited by no other journalist thus far:
'You told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game, that [he] ran circles around his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden's mental faculties appeared diminished?'
Now that's cooking with gas.
Harris paused. Her brow furrowed. Her eyes searched for an answer that did not include the phrases 'opportunity economy', 'aspirations, dreams, and goals', 'work ethic', 'lift people up, not beat people down'.
Her operating system buffered for a good few seconds. Then she told a blatant lie.
'Joe Biden,' she said, 'I have watched from the Oval Office' — up came the hands, forming brackets that move up and down as if to indicate heavy, profound thoughts — 'and the Situation Room' — her tandem head nod comes in now — 'and he has the judgement and the experiment, the experience, to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people.'
That must be why every Democratic Party elder, including Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, all but physically forced him to withdraw from running for a second term.
Kamala also pulled a stealth deflection, repeatedly asking Baier a version of, 'Are you going to let me finish?'
The subtext was clear: Are you, a male journalist, really going to cut off — dismiss, disregard, disrespect — a woman? Potentially the first female president of the United States?
We've heard Kamala's canned answers on everything else ad nauseam. But when it comes to a multi-sourced claim that in May 2012, Doug Emhoff hit his then-girlfriend (pictured) in the face so hard that she spun around, Harris apparently has nothing to answer for.
Which reminds me of this classic Kamala-ism, delivered to Baier in full-throated outrage against Trump as 'the president of the United States, in the United States of America!'
There is nothing remotely sexist about an interviewer telling a subject that their answers are repetitious, banal or cliché. Or that their limited time will be best spent eliciting specifics and deepening the conversation, not spinning verbal wheels till the clock runs out.
To that point: As Baier tried to wrap up, Kamala — who clearly thought she was on fire — kept pushing back and talking, talking, talking, until Baier had to tell her that her own team (four of them, he later said), were frantically demanding a halt to this disaster.
Among the many qualities Kamala lacks, self-awareness is right up there.
Indeed, she and Doug have made women's rights a centerpiece of her presidential campaign, despite the obvious chance these dark allegations from his past would emerge.
Here was Doug to MSNBC's fangirl Jen Psaki on September 29, weeks after the nanny affair story broke:
'When we lift up women, we lift up families, we lift up the economy,' he shamelessly said. 'And when I was in the business world, it lifted up the organizations that I was in.'
Tell that to the women who worked at Emhoff's law firm, who have since come forward to claim a culture of misogyny and poor treatment.
As several former employees told the Mail, Emhoff allegedly punished women who didn't flirt with him, hosted men's-only drinks nights in the office, and preferred to have young and attractive female associates to accompany him in limos to big events.
What a guy.
In the aftermath of these disturbing claims, Kamala and Doug doubled down on social media. On Sunday, Kamala posted a lovey-dovey message on Instagram.
'Happy birthday, my Dougie,' she wrote. 'You are the best, and I love you to pieces.'
That same day, Doug posted photos of himself with his daughter, Ella - you know, the one whose nanny he slept with - when she was a baby, writing:
'Through this campaign I've found myself thinking a lot about the role we as dads have to play in fighting for a future that empowers our daughters.'
That's Doug Emhoff: Ultimate girl dad, right? And if you don't believe it, see his recent photo with Julia Roberts in a Harris-Walz cap.
This brazenness, this use of women to valorize Doug and Kamala, gets to the real problem with her candidacy: She's inauthentic, hypocritical, and avoids any issue that might cause her to be — God forbid — uncomfortable.
Depressingly, the mainstream media obliges, all too happily.
The one person who has pretended to venture into this ungodly realm is MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, who last week asked a generic, flowery question that discredited these women's disturbing claims.
She's inauthentic, hypocritical, and avoids any issue that might cause her to be - God forbid -uncomfortable. Depressingly, the mainstream media obliges, all too happily.
Oh — and of course, both Doug and Scarborough blamed Trump for spreading scurrilous 'tabloid stories' about Doug's 'personal life'.
To be clear: These are not stories about Doug's personal life. These are stories about the women he allegedly mistreated.
'We don't have time to focus on it,' Emhoff said. 'It's all a distraction.'
Inconvenient women are a 'distraction'? Got it.
Shame on Scarborough. Shame on all the media lackeys carrying Kamala and Doug's water. If this were a Republican candidate, the New York Times and co would be digging through this guy's history like archeologists.
Kamala's next big interview is rumored to be with Joe Rogan. If she has any real guts, if she wants to show her true mettle, she'll next sit down with a right-leaning or centrist female journalist — Megyn Kelly or her increasingly rare ilk — and take all the questions about Doug, the nanny, the ex-girlfriend, and his alleged workplace culture of misogyny.
In the very likely event that Kamala will do no such thing, the responsibility falls to whoever gets the next interview.
The only question is: Will they be brave enough?
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