The nation awaits The Interview with Dana Bash on CNN, a scheduled one-hour affair taped in advance with Border Czar Kamala Harris and Tim '96 mph, 97, what's the difference, I'm deaf' Walz. In advance of the interview, the Democratic ticket spent the day before in a couple of unusual venues, compared to the Trump team continuing to pound away in the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Harris was joined in Hinesville, Georgia by Walz, who flew in to join a two-day bus tour of the Peach State after spending the morning addressing the International Association of Fire Fighters Union at their convention in Boston.
On substance, in short, Walz lied. He promised tax cuts were coming.
Timothy Walz claims they'll lower taxes.
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 28, 2024
He's lying. The Harris-Walz plan includes the largest tax hike in history, a higher business tax rate than socialist Venezuela, a carbon tax — and a tax increase on 91% of Americans across every income bracket. pic.twitter.com/dvbsYziReV
Everyone knows Walz is pandering and doesn't mean it. Kamala Harris has been vice-president for three and a half years. Tim Walz has been governor of Minnesota for five and a half years. That's a little over 9 years of governing experience between the two. The sum total of tax cuts between them? 0.
Oh, sure, Joe Biden has claimed a thousand times that nobody making under $400,000 saw their taxes go up, but the stats don't lie. Joe Biden's math doesn't add up. It's never added up in any fable or policy measure he's told. People on the income scale as low as $20,000, once all of the second and third-tier consequences are factored in, saw their net tax bite go up.
Harris has promised to keep the Biden pledge to let the Trump tax cuts expire next year, which will raise taxes on 95% of Americans. Now, why else is what Walz said a lie? This may have something to do with it.
Here we go. The unthinkable is being proposed.
— Jason A. Williams (@GoingParabolic) August 28, 2024
Unrealized capital gains tax. pic.twitter.com/Qd1Ri52qnQ
In Boston, here's what else Walz told the fire fighters' union.
21-plus percent combined inflation toll three years later, I'm not sure this is the flex Walz thinks it is. He then attacked people that own stocks, people like you and me.
I'm trying to think of a word that describes Tim Walz. It's on the tip of my tongue. Weird, perhaps? The speech was forgettable on every level, and begs the question. Why is Tim Walz in Boston, Massachusetts in August speaking to a labor union? His opponent, J.D. Walz, was holding rallies and doing retail politics in Erie, Pennsylvania and De Pere, Wisconsin - you know, swing states. Walz being deployed here gives more evidence to the theory that the Democrats are trying to win on a base turnout model, not appealing to swing state independents and moderates that might be up for grabs.
Walz flew down to Atlanta and caught up with the Harris bus tour, which featured as their highlight on Wednesday an appearance to the band kids at Liberty County High School in Hinesville. Now these two clips really made me shake my head, because my oldest step-son was a bandie in high school from 2018-2022. Being the dad that I am, I was the model band dad. I chaperoned one of the buses of kids up to San Francisco for their performance in the Chinese New Year Parade, in 2020 as the virus was unfurling across the country. I worked all the band tournaments held at our high school. I played bus tetris in the school's parking lot with 50 schools competing, complete with equipment trucks. I've worked the jazz tournaments. I've gone to college band spectaculars for friends of ours that we met as part of the high school's instrumental music boosters. I know band kids - how they act, how they talk, how they think. That's not how Kamala Harris rolls.
Sheesh, was the camera crew from Sesame Street filming this? These kids are 14-18 years old, not 6. She wasn't done, though. It's time for the word salad, because kids need to learn to ingest their rhetorical veggies, too, apparently.
One of Sammy Davis, Jr.'s greatest hits was a song called I've Gotta Be Me. No matter how much the campaign is trying to hide the real Kamala, despite regime media doing everything in their power to detach Harris from the Biden train and memory hole every inane thing she's said during her time as vice president, you can't take Kamala Harris out of Kamala Harris. And Kamala Harris is an awful campaigner. She induces cringes every time she's off-script. Every time. Look at the expression on Walz' face. You know what I don't see? Joy.
Harris and Walz will hop back on the bus today and continue to make left turns until they find their way to Savannah for a rally. Then, it's time for the grand reveal with Dana Bash at 9pm EDT...taped in advance, of course. How does that compare to the Trump team?
J.D. Vance started the day in Erie, Pennsylvania, and was expected to speak to about 40 people. Hundreds showed up. Hundreds more lined the streets and in the retail store attached to the event site. Here's Senator Vance reacting to media trying to make a brouhaha over Donald Trump visiting Arlington Cemetery on the 3rd anniversary of the Afghanistan disaster at Abbey Gate.
More Vance.
In De Pere, Wisconsin a few hours later, another overflow crowd heard from the Republican vice presidential nominee.
Some themes work in every swing state, but Vance, unlike Harris and Walz, tailors his remarks to match statistics in the state from which he's speaking.
My favorite clip from the two events? Mocking Kamala Harris.
I'm hopeful that Dana Bash treats this interview the same way she treated the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. If she does just ask serious questions and presses after non-answers, Kamala Harris will do herself the most harm. She always does.
Tonight won't change the calculus much, unless Harris completely falls apart, but it might bend the arc a bit leading into the debate in two weeks. Americans buying into the honeymoon coverage might slowly start to walk away after discovering that she's not up to doing this job.
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