Flashback: Kamala Harris Tells Stephen Colbert ‘It Was a Debate!’ When Asked About Swipes Against Biden
In spite of media protestations to the contrary, now is the perfect time to talk about whether Sen. Kamala Harris’ stances are just meaningless words uttered in order to get ahead. If not now, when?
In the weeks prior to Joe Biden announcing Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) as his running mate, conservatives brought up the fact that Harris stated last year that she believed the Democratic women who went public and accused Biden of inappropriate touching and hair-sniffing.
There was also the important matter of what Harris said about Biden to his face during the June 2019 Democratic presidential debate over comments he’d made at the time on working with segregationist senators in the 70s and his past opinions on forced busing.
When the issue came up at the debate, Harris blasted him in what turned out to be one of only a few high points of her time in the spotlight on any of the debate stages:
I’m going to now direct this at Vice President Biden. I do not believe you are a racist, and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground. But I also believe—and it’s personal. I was actually very—it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day. And that little girl was me.
The “I do not believe you are a racist” line was a classic political tactic used by candidates for higher office to make themselves appear conciliatory right before painting their opposition as the worst person in the world. Harris claimed his comments were “personal” and “hurtful” and she treated them as such in her dramatic attack.
Here’s a flashback to their back and forth exchange, where she was perceived to have gotten the better of Biden:
WATCH: In one of the most heated moments of the Democratic debates yet, Kamala Harris confronted Joe Biden for working with segregationist senators and his record on busing. #DemDebate2 #DemocraticDebate2 https://t.co/sJsMyihIbs pic.twitter.com/3gkfAFIZJm
— The Hill (@thehill) June 28, 2019
Fast forward to when Biden was the only one left standing, and when the vice-presidential search started. Sen. Harris was floated as a leading contender for the spot. Conservatives wondered how she would square her past comments about Biden if he picked her as his running mate
As it turns out, Harris gave everyone a big clue as to how she would address that issue in an interview she did with Stephen Colbert a couple of months ago. The interview did not get a ton of attention at the time, but it’s resurfaced in light of the fact that she’s now the Democratic vice-presidential candidate.
After confirming she’d like to be on the ticket alongside Biden, Colbert asked her about her June 2019 debate comments and wondered “how do you go from being such a passionate opponent on such bedrock principles for you, and now you guys seem to be pals?”:
In an interview with Harris last Wednesday, Stephen Colbert said he believed that she is sincerely behind Biden. She might be a good running mate, he said, but how would she get there after all the “haymakers” she landed onstage?
“It was a debate,” Harris said.
“Not everyone landed punches like you did, though,” Colbert said.
“It was a debate,” Harris said, deploying the laugh she often uses to deflect during television interviews.
“So you don’t mean it?”
“It was a debate,” she said again.
Watch the exchange below:
That makes no sense whatsoever. She either meant her comments or she didn’t:
She seems to believe that by repeating the word “debate” over and over, it negates everything she attacked Biden about.
So was she lying then, or is she lying now?
Can’t have it both ways, Kamala. Either you stand for the principles you claimed in the debate, or you don’t. pic.twitter.com/ewWuKPBa6d
— Not Rian’s Luke ? (@_LukeCSkywalker) August 15, 2020
Sounds like what she’s saying is that her ripping him to shreds in that first debate was just words, meaningless. Like her claiming she believed Biden’s accusers last year but seemingly forgetting that this year, this is another example of Harris being willing to say anything if it sounds good enough to get her ahead politically.
Which brings me to what former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (IL), a longtime supporter of Biden’s, said right after that June debate where Harris had what political observers called her “breakout moment” against Biden (bolded emphasis added):
“We can be proud of her nonetheless, but her ambition got it wrong about Joe,” said former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, the first African American woman to serve in the Senate who has endorsed Biden in the 2020 primary. “He is about the best there is; for her to take that tack is sad.”
“Her ambition got it wrong about Joe” is about as close as any Democrat will get to saying Harris deliberately stages attacks on allies in order to get ahead. Braun was right. Harris had planned the attack on him for months due to a desire to move into the top tier.
There’s nothing wrong with political ambition per se, but there is something wrong when a person is willing to throw someone they used to treat as a staunch ally under the bus in order to get ahead in politics. Even worse than that, there’s definitely something wrong when a candidate is willing to throw their supposed principles out with the bathwater in order to advance their political career.
Unfortunately, this happens all too often in politics. In Kamala Harris’ case, she’s been able to get away with it for so long because she’s a woman, and if you listen to the mainstream media, we’re not supposed to talk about the ambitions of women running for higher office and what they’ll say and do in order to get ahead. Why? Because supposedly it’s sexist or something.
It’s a ridiculous claim, though, considering they often report on the political ambitions of men running for higher office – and on their ambitions once they get there. If we can talk about men’s ambitions, we can most certainly talk about women’s ambitions.
Especially in this case. I mean, Harris will be second in command if she and Biden win in November. And speculation is running high that Biden will step down at some point before his presidential term is up and hand over the reins to her.
So yes, now is the perfect time to talk about this woman’s ambitions, where she stands on the issues, and if her stances are just meaningless words uttered in order to get ahead. If not now, when?
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Two unfunny malignant clowns.
Millie Weaver has been arrested contemporaneous with the release of her documentary about the obama spying scandal.
Too late: the documentary has been posted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxCjJUiUCLw
Thanks for the link.
I can’t decide who is more odious — the perpetually and insufferably swarmy, obsequious, slipper-fetching, obnoxiously unfunny and gleeful partisan media lackey-lemming, Colbert, or, the shag/fellate her way to-the-top, Machiavellian, greasy, self-serving and mendacious apparatchik-radical, Harris.
They’re the same. They just have different job titles.
Colbert is Harris’ opposite-sex alter ego.
Interesting to see multiple posts on other sites this weekend telling Kammy she can’t sleep her way into the White House. At the same time the rumors are swirling about a Kammy – Gavin Newsome affair when she was in SF. How will the media avoid Kammy’s sleeping around?
And speaking of the media, more importantly how many in the media has Kami slept with?
Why should they have to address it at all? Do they ever address male politicians’ sleeping around? It never comes up, because it’s irrelevant.
(Unless they’re Republicans, because reporters have this weird idea that all Republicans are puritans, seeking to impose old-fashioned standards of sexual morality on everyone, and thus their private lives are automatically public business. But Democrats are never held to this standard because it’s assumed that all Democrats have “progressed” and “evolved” past such ridiculous standards and have no reason to keep them.)
In other words, she is deceptive like Clinton and Obama, solely to achieve her ends. It is the last thing one should want in a political leader. Not to mention she is wrong on most issues, and does not seem that smart to begin with.
As for attacks on women, etc., equal treatment is what they are entitled to, including public exposure. Critics are not the ones obsessed with gender, but her as an individual. There is a double edged sword for women, that has existed since the beginning. In politics, it is easy to spot the contradiction when an accomplished woman needs to be protected for being a woman.
Stacey Matthews: Sounds like what she’s saying is that her ripping him to shreds in that first debate was just words, meaningless.
Don’t see that. Harris disagreed with Biden’s stance on busing, and was hurt by his accommodation with segregationists. That doesn’t mean they don’t agree on many other issues. And it is a sign of political maturity for both of them to work together where they can.
Say, what’s with the racial appropriation in that icon of yours?
She also said she believed the women.
Spot on. She weaponized me too against Biden in debates and now wants to put the gun down to pretend like she never drew it in the first place. That’s not political maturity, it’s political gamesmanship.
willow: She also said she believed the women.
Sure. Some women said they felt uncomfortable with his behavior.
Yeah, from what I understand most women feel “uncomfortable” with being raped.
Funny, you could say that some Dems like the Speaker of the House could use a little of this “political maturity” despite disagreements then.
It’s also not a coincidence that this sudden “political maturity” shows up when there is an opportunity for personal political gain. If Dems didn’t break standards, then they would have none.
healthguyfsu: you could say that some Dems like the Speaker of the House could use a little of this “political maturity” despite disagreements then.
Unfortunately, Trump has never been able to overcome his need for vindictiveness. Biden noted to “Do not hold grudges.”
Classic spin. Like her, do you actually believe what you are saying? Maturity? Absurd.
Lol and you actually believe that?
That’s not what she said, though. She now says there’s no daylight between them, because what she said then was merely a debating tactic and she never meant it.
Yeah, she’ll get away with any past inconvenient comments but what irritates me even more is her running mate’s use of the disgraceful “very fine people” lie to stoke racial divisions. As far as I know, no media “fact checkers” have challenged that slob on his lie.
This is the ‘hillary clinton treatment’.
It worked while she was on the peripheries of power, but failed miserably when she got too close. Hence, her losing her schmatta in 2008 and 2012.
The one unambiguously good thing to come from Obama’s terms is that he blocked the Clintons from getting back in the White House, twice.
She lost her rag?! I’ve never come across that idiom, and am not sure what exactly it’s supposed to mean.
I believe the women*
*It was a debate
The metoo movement must be thrilled to have to stifle their feminist rage about this.
So if she was asked about her attacks on SCJ Kavanaugh, she would say, “Hey, it was just a hearing”?
She has no skin in the whole racism thing. She’s not an African American, she’s an Indian American appropriating Blackness for political purposes.
She is of Indian and Jamaican descent. The media is whitewashing the Jamaican half, her ancestors owned slaves.
Sigh. This again? Her Jamaican ancestors were slaves. Like most descendants of slaves, she is also descended from at least one slave-owner.
Unless you’re under the weird delusion that Hamilton Brown was black.
Trump should offer to debate Harris because she’s the “Real” presidential candidate. Biden is just a placeholder.
Then we’d see how the public would react to Harris’ shrill cackle in a nationwide broadcast.
Are those freaky brow lines pre-op or post-op?
TRANS-OP.
Kamala has a Willie problem.
Willie Brown.
“It was a debate”
I’m confused. Do things said in debates not count outside the debate? Is there some secret rule that says you can lie in a debate in order to win?
Or is it the opposite, that truths revealed in debate should not be used to counter lies the rest of the time?
Please explain, Kamala, what magic characteristic applies during a debate but not the rest of the time?
In Layman’s terms: Its a debate its like a campaign promise. You can say anything fool thing. Not like you going have to deliver.
It is an incredible stretch to expect truth and reason from a woman who screwed her way to political success. No worries, the dinosaur media, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat party,will cover for her.
I think she may have confused political debates with the competitive debates of high school and college, or of moot court, where you make the best case you can for a proposition you are assigned, whether you believe in it or not, and you make whatever arguments you think will carry the debate whether you think they’re true or not.
Obviously a competitive debater cannot be held to anything she says in a debate, because it was a game, she was role-playing. One might as well hold an actor playing a villain responsible for his speech and actions on the stage.
But the purpose of those debates is to practice for real life; and candidate debates are real life. When you’re in a real political debate you’re not playing a character, you’re you, and the arguments you make have to be ones you believe in, or at least ones you can stand by and defend later. She seems not to understand this.
“It was a debate. So I lied. It’s what we do at the debates.”