‘Kamala Is Brat’: Media Back to Business as Usual with Friendly Coverage of Harris

Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks, a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we look at the media’s friendly coverage of Vice President Kamala Harris and cover more media misses.

Mainstream Media and Democrats Kiss and Make Up

After President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate showing, the mainstream media came together to do something it rarely does: report critically on a Democrat.

But now that Kamala Harris has taken over as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, the media are acting as friendly as ever.

Take, for instance, the recent discussion over whether Harris “is brat” on a CNN panel. The Lead with Jake Tapper dedicated an entire discussion to Charli XCX writing on social-media that “Kamala IS brat,” in reference to the singer’s new album, Brat. The 55-year-old anchor tapped 69-year-old special correspondent Jamie Gangel to explain the reference. Gangel reads the singer’s definition of the phrase, “You’re just that girl who is a little messy, and likes to party, and maybe says some dumb things some times.”

The panel takes it as evidence that the Harris campaign has a strong appeal with Gen Z.

Meanwhile, CNN journalist Edward-Isaac Dovere shared his own hard-hitting piece of reporting in a post on X: “One person familiar with the VP yesterday: through all her calls at the Naval Observatory, Harris wore a hooded Howard University sweatshirt, workout sweats and sneakers. They got pizza and salad for dinner. She went with her favorite topping: anchovies.”

BBC News editor Courtney Subramanian added her own helpful insight, saying that Harris wearing the Howard sweatshirt was an “important detail.”

“For Harris, this is about where she came from as much as what lies ahead. Howard is the first place she looks for when Air Force Two lands in Washington,” Subramanian wrote in a post on X.

Then there’s, well, whatever this is from MSNBC political analyst Michael Steele:

Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell also shared her own inspirational photo of the vice president:

And according to the Scientific American, Harris “would bring a lifelong familiarity with science to the presidency.” Why? Because she is the daughter of a cancer researcher. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a leading breast-cancer researcher who died of cancer.

As National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke said, “This is awesome news. My Dad was in the Air Force, so I guess I’m a veteran now.”

The Scientific American article then laughably goes on to explain that Harris has already made her mark on the sciences by promoting diversity initiatives in the STEM workforce.

Meanwhile, in a likely preview of what’s to come from the media over the next 100 days of the Harris-Trump match-up, a CBS News affiliate in Minnesota claimed the former president had “falsely” accused the vice president of “donating to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, bailing out ‘dangerous criminals.'”

WCCO was reporting on Trump’s recent comments at a North Carolina rally in which he said Harris had helped raise millions of dollars to free violent criminals through her support of the bail fund.

While there is no evidence that Harris donated to the fund herself, Trump was indeed correct to suggest Harris had helped raise money for the controversial bail fund.

“If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota,” Harris wrote in a post on social-media in June 2020, during the height of the George Floyd riots.

Meanwhile, several media outlets have made a seemingly coordinated push to refute claims that Biden had appointed Harris as his “border czar” back in 2021.

Axios reported that “the Trump campaign and Republicans have tagged Harris repeatedly with the ‘border czar’ title — which she never actually had.”

Yet Axios reported in 2021 that Harris was “appointed by Biden as border czar.” But after receiving backlash to its recent post, the outlet said it had actually “incorrectly” called her a border czar in the past.

In March 2021, Biden said of Harris: “In addition to that, there’s about five other major things she’s handling, but I’ve asked her, the VP, today — because she’s the most qualified person to do it — to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help — are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border.”

Headline Fail of the Week

The Associated Press published a wildly unnecessary “fact-check” this week: “No, JD Vance did not have sex with a couch.”

After backlash over the post, the AP deleted it entirely.

As National Review’s Noah Rothman put it: “The AP published a ‘fact-check’ of utterly unknown nobodies who alleged that JD Vance fornicated a couch, not because anyone believed that but because it introduces that nonsense into the bloodstream. Today, it’s gone. So sleazy.”

Media Misses

• Politico offers yet another headline for the “Republicans pounce” collection: “Republicans pounce after Netanyahu protesters burn U.S. flags – and wave Hamas ones instead.” The outlet later changed the headline to say Republicans “condemn” rather than “pounce.”
• MSNBC host Joy Reid apparently thinks she has insight into the dynamics of the Trump family, claiming that the former president does not appear to have a loving relationship with his family. “Donald Trump has grandkids too, but the physical interactions that they had at the convention felt so cold and sort of clinical,” Reid said. “It didn’t feel real. You really don’t see Melania.”
• Last week, we offered numerous examples of embarrassing media hero-worship over Biden’s decision to drop out of the race but perhaps none of those top this egregious sentiment from Washington Post columnist Jen Rubin, who recently likened Biden to George Washington. “If you cannot appreciate the dignity, the grace, the selflessness, the patriotism of that speech – akin to Washington’s farewell – but instead feel compelled to denigrate him, nitpick or return to petty partisan politics I pity you,” Rubin wrote in a post on X. “You’re denying yourself the majesty, the inspiration of America and of a great president. Go self-reflect.”