OPINION:
The bias of the moderators of ABC’s presidential debate three weeks ago against Donald Trump was so blatant that even the opening skit of this past weekend’s season premiere of “Saturday Night Live” skewered it.
“I had hoped the takeaway of the debate I moderated would be my striking good looks,” quipped neatly coiffed “SNL” cast member Andrew Dismukes, portraying ABC news anchor David Muir, “but unfortunately, it was whether or not I was biased towards the Democrats … which, duh!”
Mr. Muir and his co-moderator, Linsey Davis, were so widely (and deservedly) criticized that CBS announced that, at tonight’s vice presidential debate, it would instead let the VP candidates, Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, “fact-check” each other in real-time.
Since Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Walz are shunning formal news conferences or even media scrums to allow reporters to ask questions, tonight’s debate might be the only opportunity the American voters will have to get answers to important questions about the policies they support so they aren’t casting their ballots blindly and buying the proverbial pig in a poke.
Given that an analysis by the Media Research Center found that 85% of CBS’ news coverage of the Harris-Walz campaign has been positive, while 81% of its reporting on the Trump-Vance ticket has been negative, we shouldn’t count on CBS’ debate moderators, anchor Norah O’Donnell and “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan to ask Mr. Walz the following questions.
If need be, Mr. Vance should do it himself.
How much—what percentage—exactly is the oft-repeated “fair share” in taxes that you think millionaires, billionaires, and businesses should pay?
According to IRS figures compiled by the nonprofit Tax Foundation, “in 2021, the bottom half of taxpayers earned 10.4 percent of total [adjusted gross income] and paid 2.3 percent of all federal individual income taxes. The top 1 percent earned 26.3 percent of total AGI and paid 45.8 percent of all federal income taxes.” If that’s not a sufficiently “fair share,” how much higher should those percentages be?
Why should we believe Ms. Harris’ policy reversals from far left in 2019 to quasi-centrist today are genuine changes of heart and mind, and not just an election-year ploy, and that she won’t just revert back to her former far-left self if elected? (Didn’t her socialist soulmate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., say the quiet part out loud Sept. 8 on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” when he said Harris was just being “pragmatic” and doing what she needs to do to get elected?)
At what point do you and Ms. Harris say, “¡No mas!”—Spanish for “no more”—to illegal immigration? If not the estimated 10 million migrants over the past 3-1/2 years, is it 20 million? 30 million? How do you propose to pay the hundreds of billions of dollars it will cost for all the housing, food, education, and health care of them?
Does the Harris-Walz ticket still support spending federal tax dollars for transgender surgeries for federal prison inmates, including incarcerated illegals?
Why does Ms. Harris continue to misrepresent the unsuccessful border bill as “bipartisan,” when it clearly wasn’t, and still falsely blame Mr. Trump for the bill’s defeat? Isn’t that just cover smoke for the Biden-Harris administration’s open borders policies, which large majority of Americans oppose?
Why won’t Democrats cease and desist from the over-the-top assertions that “Trump is an existential threat to democracy” when those baseless claims are clearly inspiring unhinged individuals to try to kill him?
You and Ms. Harris are unabashedly ardent champions of virtually unlimited abortion rights, but are there any limits or restrictions on abortion that you support? At what number of weeks of gestation would you ban abortion—15? 20? The end of the second trimester? Fetal viability? Up to the moment of birth? Do you at least support parental notification and consent laws for abortions for minors?
Why have neither of you said or done anything about the tens—or even hundreds—of thousands of immigrant women and girls being raped and sexually assaulted while crossing the border and/or being human-trafficked into sex slavery, which the open-borders policies you support have made possible?
Do you really believe that Ms. Harris is capable of going toe-to-toe with dictators like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and Iran’s ayatollahs and that they would take her seriously as president and leader of the Free World?
For that matter, how can the American people be certain that you, as vice president, will stand up to Xi when you’ve practically made China your second home, visiting it 30-odd times and even getting married on the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre?
Why have neither you nor Ms. Harris nor President Joe Biden been to Florida, Georgia, or North Carolina to offer aid and comfort to the victims of Hurricane Helene, as Trump already has? Ms. Harris was at fundraisers on the West Coast over the weekend while you were at a football game in Michigan.
Why have neither of you met with the families of any of the crime victims of illegal aliens who have entered the country on this administration’s watch? The Angel Moms and other victims’ families have complained that neither Mr. Biden nor Ms. Harris has so much as even telephoned them to console them or to offer them any assistance. Why not?
Ms. Harris visited the open border this past Friday for the first time since June 2021, but wasn’t the visit really nothing more than a staged campaign photo-op? Do you want to apologize right here, right now, on national TV on Ms. Harris’ behalf to the mothers of Jocelyn Nungaray and Rachel Morin, two of the victims killed this year by illegal aliens that this administration allowed into the country?
You’ve earned the nickname “Tampon Tim” for having tampon dispensers installed in boys’ restrooms in Minnesota public schools. How many “trans men”—that is, biological females who actually might need them—are there in Minnesota’s schools? You can surely count them on one hand, so isn’t that just leftist virtual signaling at its most ludicrous? And by the way, how many genders are there?
And finally: When, where, and for how long did Ms. Harris work at a McDonald’s, as she claims? Why is there no photographic or other evidence to prove it or confirmation from former co-workers? Isn’t it a lie intended to make her appear to be a normal “middle-class kid,” rather than the child of two ivory tower academics?
• Peter Parisi is a former editor for The Washington Times
Please read our comment policy before commenting.