When a Republican tells a journalist to never accept their false assumptions, it’s a great day.
Tom Cotton demonstrated how to do this on Sunday when he appeared alongside Jonathan Karl, ABC News’ resident hack. Karl said that Kamala Harris no longer supported ending private health insurance during an exchange where Cotton referred to several of her radical policy positions. The Arkansas senator was waiting and ready for this line.
Tom Cotton applies the number one rule when dealing with the press in this clip: Never accept their false premises.
Karl insists Harris has changed her position on eliminating private health insurance, and Cotton takes him to the cleaners. pic.twitter.com/Ylq37mDRIw
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) August 25, 2024
COTTON: President Trump will draw a stark contrast with Kamala Harri, who supported decriminalizing immigration giving taxpayer-funded healthcare to illegal aliens or taking away the health insurance at work for 170 million Americans, banning gasoline cars, and confiscating firearms.
KARL What do you mean?
COTTON: Jon, Cotton said that when she ran for President she wanted to eliminate the private health insurance for 170 million Americans.
KARL: Oh, yeah, she’s changed her mind, and now…
COTTON: How do you know this is not her position, Cotton? How do you know it’s not her opinion?
KARL: She says that she does not support Medicare for All.
COTTON: “She has not said this.” She hasn’t said that. She has not said that.
KARL: This convention was not radical. She, she and she does not take positions that are far left of her party, as I have explained to you with Bernie Sanders. She is trying to move towards the middle.
COTTON: Jon, I heard what you said about Sen. Sanders and it seemed clear that he is very disappointed in her for trying to conceal her views, not change them. According to what Kamala Harris said during her last presidential campaign and what the administration has done over the past four years, the American people have every right to believe that she is a dangerous San Francisco Liberal.
Again, you would have thought watching the Democratic convention last week that the Democrats are not in office. That they’re not in power. That they’re campaigning against an incumbent Republican when in reality, she’s been part of the failures of the Biden-Harris administration for four years, and when she campaigned for president in her rite, she did promise things like decriminalizing illegal immigration and taking away health insurance
KARL: She has changed her mind and said so.
COTTON: She hasn’t
KARL: She has, yes.
COTTON: No, Jon, she has not said that.
Karl’s only accomplishment in this clip was that he continued to be a hack right up until the end. Cotton did his homework and was prepared to slam down any attempts by the media to act as a propaganda arm for Harris.
How can an “auto-described journalist” claim that Harris changed her stance on decriminalizing immigration illegal and eliminating private health care when she has given zero interviews and held zero press conferences since beginning her presidential campaign? She has not released an official platform. When was it acceptable for a candidate to make a complete 180-degree turn by releasing anonymous news releases on Friday night through anonymous aides?
It’s embarrassing that journalists like Karl not only let her get away with it but also play PR agent under the guise of news. It is equally bad that he went on to act as a PR agent for the DNC by claiming the conference was not radical. When did it become his job to defend political conventions and make them look bad?
Cotton, as I mentioned, followed the first rule and rejected the entire premise. Karl was left robotically repeating the same lines over and over again because once a journalist is knocked off their game they have nothing left. Press members are lazy. They don’t do any research. They use the talking points that are provided to them and get frustrated and flustered if they’re able to counter them. Cotton kept his cool and countered Karl’s lies.
