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The Heartland Institute’s Donald Kendal, Jim Lakely, and Chris Talgo present episode 463 of the In The Tank Podcast. Despite being the official Democratic Presidential candidate for several weeks, the campaign has been slow to reveal her official positions on many important issues. And lately, there have been statements on behalf of Vice President Harris suggesting she is no longer in favor of mandates for electric vehicles and that she is no longer in favor of banning hydraulic fracturing. With the lack of official policy platforms, how are voters supposed to know who is the real Kamala Harris?
OPENING CHIT CHAT
OPENING CHIT CHAT
Newsweek - Mark Zuckerberg Just Blew the Whistle on Biden's Contempt for Free Speech | Opinion
Politico - Zuckerberg’s new Washington game
PRIMARY TOPIC - Will The Real Kamala Harris Please Stand Up?
Daily Caller - Harris Campaign Says It’s A ‘Lie’ That Kamala Backs EV Mandates, But Her Record Tells A Different Story
Fox Business - Harris campaign says Dem nominee 'does not support' electric vehicle mandate in attempt to flip the script
Politico - Harris campaign pledges she won’t ban fracking
The Hill - Voters deserve answers on Kamala Harris’s true energy policy
CBS News - Harris has yet to outline her plan for climate change. Here's what the Democratic Party platform says.
Creators & Guests
Host
Host
What is In The Tank?
The weekly flagship podcast from The Heartland Institute features in-depth policy discussions connected to current news. Host Donald Kendal leads the discussion with the usual crew of Heartland Institute Vice President Jim Lakely, Socialism Research Center “Commissar” Justin Haskins, Editorial Director Chris Talgo, and others at this national free-market think tank. The entertaining and informative discussions often hit topics such as the environment, energy policy, Big Tech censorship, the troubling rise of socialism, globalism, health care, education, that state of freedom in America and around the world, and much more.
This podcast is also available as part of the Heartland Daily Podcast, the “firehose” of all the organization’s podcasts that take deep and entertaining dives into public policy.
And we are live, ladies and gentlemen. Despite being the official democratic presidential candidate for several weeks now, the, campaign, the Kamala Harris campaign has been slow to reveal her official positions on many important issues. And lately, there's been statements made on behalf of vice president Harris suggesting that she is no longer in favor of mandates for electric vehicles, that she's no longer in favor of banning hydraulic fracturing. And with the lack of official policy platforms, how are voters supposed to know who the real Kamala Harris is? We're gonna be talking about all this and more in episode 463 of the in the thick line.
Kamala Harris:I don't know what's wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?
Donald Kendal:That is right. Fresh from the coconut tree. I am your host as always, Donald Kendall. And joining me today, I've got a couple of people. I've got Jim Lakeley, VP of the Heartland Institute.
Donald Kendal:How are you doing today, good sir?
Jim Lakely:I'm doing great. I am getting prepared, getting excited for, the Heartland Institute's 40th anniversary benefit dinner in Chicago on September 13th, where our guests, are ready to featured speakers. One of them being the great Nigel Farage will be coming across the pond to address, the assembled, people and fans of Heartland there. And, also, we are honoring doctor Larry Arnn, the president of the indispensable Hillsdale College as our, Heartland Liberty Prize winner. And, also, we just added to the program, doctor Jay Bhattacharya, who is the, the originator of the Great Barrington declaration that did more than anybody else in the United States to push back at COVID nonsense.
Jim Lakely:So it's going to be a night you don't wanna, you don't wanna miss. So go to heartland.org. You can get information and tickets, and you'll also be able to see Justin Haskins, who I think we should take out of the intro of this of this show now because I don't what what has it been? 6 weeks since he's been on the program. So, if you wanna see Justin Haskins and you can see him in person, come to our benefit dinner.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I want everyone to go to Twitter and, just just let Justin have it for not being on the show. It the last time he was on, I looked it up just this morning. Yeah. July 11th.
Donald Kendal:July 11th. Hashtag where is Justin Haskins?
Jim Lakely:There you go.
Donald Kendal:Also joining us, we have Chris Talgo, editorial director here at the Heartland Institute. Chris, how are you doing today, good sir?
Chris Talgo:Still kinda just hanging in there, Donnie. It's the dog days of summer for for old Chris.
Donald Kendal:Is that right? Is that right?
Chris Talgo:That's right. Yep.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I heard a few months ago that it was gonna be, you know, the summer of Chris. How's that panning out?
Chris Talgo:Well, it's it's been a good summer so far. I played a lot of golf. Almost had my hole in 1 a couple weeks ago. Had an eagle on a par four, so that was pretty cool. So, yeah, I mean, I'm pretty excited.
Chris Talgo:We got a big tournament coming up at the end of the year, big 4 person scramble at Cog Hills. I'm just trying to get ready for that. Hopefully, we can win it this time.
Donald Kendal:Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, we've got a lot to talk about. But, before we get into any of our topics, I have to put that message out there at the beginning of all these podcasts that, you know, mostly for the audio only listeners that are probably catching the show on a Friday or later. If you are, leave a review for us on Itunes.
Donald Kendal:That'd be greatly appreciated. And consider joining us a day earlier at Thursdays at noon central time, where we are live streaming this on Facebook and YouTube and x and supposed to be Rumble, but I'm not sure if that's up right now. So you can help out the show by not doing super chats because we have been demonetized by YouTube, but you can go to heartland.org/in the tank if you wanna support the show that way. It's a better way to support the show because the money goes directly to the show and doesn't get taxed at a 30% clip by YouTube. You could also help out the show by hitting that like button, subscribing if you haven't already, sharing this content, or just leaving a comment on the video.
Donald Kendal:All those things help break through those big tech algorithms that prevent content like this from being shown to more people. But like I said, there is a there there's a there's a lot going on. We could have probably done this episode on a handful of different topics. But one thing that I felt like we couldn't pass up was this latest development when it came to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. So just the other day, the, Facebook meta, whatever you wanna call it, CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to congressman Jim Jordan about supposed censorship on the platform.
Donald Kendal:And, based on that description, you likely think that there's just a letter of some noncontroversial letter talking about how Facebook strives to keep the platform safe from disinformation, hate speech, etcetera, etcetera. But in this case, surprisingly, you would be dead wrong. So the letter in part and, Andy, I could actually share this link with you. This is the yeah. I actually it was kinda hard for me to find the letter, so here's the here's the link to that.
Donald Kendal:But the letter in part reads, in 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID 19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration when our teams, with our teams when we didn't agree. He then writes, ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions. I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction, and we're ready to push back if something like this happens again. Then he starts writing about the now infamous Hunter Biden laptop, you know, situation.
Donald Kendal:He says, in a separate situation, the FBI warned us about potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma in the lead up to the 2020 election. That fall, when we saw the New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's family, we sent that story to fact checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while we were waiting for a reply. And by demoted, I think he means completely disabling the ability to share that story, even going as far as not allowing the link to be sent via Facebook Messenger.
Chris Talgo:By the
Donald Kendal:way, we're just gonna call that demoted. Right? Then he continues to write, it's since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn't have demoted the story. He then assures us that they've made a bunch of policy changes so that this won't happen again, and he ends the letter by acknowledging the large sums of money that he donated to, like, get out the vote movements and, how it seemed to advantage one side of the political aisle over the other. And you can guess which side that is before claiming that he's not gonna make similar contributions this cycle.
Donald Kendal:So, Jim, I'm gonna go to you first on this one. I mean, we've we've we've talked about this. We've on this podcast known about this for a while now, but it is kinda it's still interesting to me to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. What do you think?
Jim Lakely:Well, I mean, as you noted, we all knew this. Everybody who listens and watches this podcast knew this already. Everybody that followed the Twitter files where Elon Musk asked independent truly independent journalists to look through all of this all of the data and the memos and the emails and the Slack channel, discussions and all of that stuff to expose for everyone what was going on just at that Twitter and now x social media platform when it came to coordination between the government and basically threats from the government to social media companies to make sure that, just in one example, that the Hunter Biden laptop story was suppressed, as fake news. We knew this already. No one who depends on our corrupt legacy media perhaps knows about this until now, and maybe they don't even know it now.
Jim Lakely:I I have I have my doubts that this was a big feature on Rachel Maddow's show this week or on any of the MSNBC or CNN, prime time chat net you know, chat shows. I. There's no way. Chris would have to confirm for me because I don't watch those garbage networks. Chris does.
Jim Lakely:Thank god. So maybe they actually did bring this up, but I I would be willing to bet, 7 cups of coffee that that didn't happen. But the the the important thing here to remember is that as this letter, I think, outlines is that the FBI just taking the Hunter laptop story now. The FBI had Hunter Biden's laptop since 2019. They knew before anybody else had heard of this laptop that it was legit, that this was his laptop, that it did have incriminating evidence of collusion among the Biden family and foreign agents to enrich same Biden family.
Jim Lakely:Yet, they still put out information, and they and they so they contacted Mark Zuckerberg, and they contacted Twitter. And they said, be on the lookout specifically for this kind of, hits against the Biden family. That that, my friends, they said to their friends in the in the social media companies, that's Russian disinformation. So be on the lookout for it. If it happens to come up, the FBI, our FBI, the most powerful and supposedly most trusted law enforcement agency in the United States, lying to these social media companies, to Mark Zuckerberg, to us, the American people, by saying that this was Russian disinformation when they obviously knew that that was not the case.
Jim Lakely:They had the laptop in their possession. And so that is actual election interference. Far worse than anything Russia did or didn't do in the 2016 election. The FBI was rigging the election for the Democrats. This is as plain as day, and it is a freaking outrage and a scandal.
Jim Lakely:And if our media if our legacy media had any integrity whatsoever, this would be the biggest story in America right now. And it's not. You're only hearing about it in, quote unquote right wing media, on podcasts such as this one. And, you know, also, Mark Zuckerberg points out that it was basically common practice for whenever these communications happen between the government, the regime, and social media companies to suppress any information critical of Democrats, that they would bring up threats to the, what what is it called? Section 230 protections that that keep the social media companies basically going Without section 230 of the communications of the communications act, they can't really operate as social media companies.
Jim Lakely:And so that was being threatened like the freaking mob against social media companies. And so this we are undergoing and we have been for years a psyop by our government against the people of the United States, and it is never ending. And you've mentioned it in your in your summary of this, Donnie, and I'll throw this over to Chris. But the first thing I one of the first things I thought of when I heard about this letter was, like, oh, gee. I wonder.
Jim Lakely:Hey, Mark Zuckerberg. Are you gonna give $400,000,000 for election integrity, this year to maybe try to get the regime that threatened you and lied and gaslit the American people? Are you going to, contribute $400,000,000 of Zuck Bucks to help get this corrupt evil regime out? The answer, of course, is no. And so, you know, that was just fine before.
Jim Lakely:He will take no steps now that he could take to punish the regime that lied to him and lied to the American people. So cry me a river, Mark Zuckerberg. They should have blown up Facebook from space. They should have taken your 2:30 away from you, and maybe Trump will if he gets reelected. Who knows?
Jim Lakely:That's what he would deserve.
Donald Kendal:Chris, when I first saw this shared on Twitter, I, you know, I didn't read it yet. I just saw it shared on Twitter. Someone made some comments about it, but I assumed that once I read it, it was just gonna be, like, the standard talking points and the crusade against misinformation or whatever. And I was kind of surprised that it was, like, this blunt in the acknowledging of, like, the government's role in it and the actions that Facebook itself took. So, I mean, I didn't expect it.
Donald Kendal:So why? Like, why? That I guess that's my question. Like, why did Mark Zuckerberg actually release this letter? What are your thoughts on this?
Chris Talgo:I mean, I can't really speculate to that, but all I can tell you is this is too little too late because if Mark Zuckerberg actually cared about this, he would have been doing this sort of thing while he was being, quote, unquote, pressured to, to moderate content that didn't fit the political narrative that, you know, he probably ascribes to. So to me, this is, you know, 3 or 4 years after the fact, so who cares?
Donald Kendal:Yeah. You know, I I I read the letter, and it's like, this sounds great. But, like, I I'm also kind of at the point where I don't really care, like, if he's being truthful about this. I feel like I really can't take his word that, oh, we're changing policies to make sure this doesn't happen again. Again, a little, too little too late.
Donald Kendal:It's like, a, I don't I don't I don't trust you or your promises that your new policies will prevent this from happening in the future. And, b, your acknowledgment and borderline apology isn't going to undo the damage that your actions had on that election. It's like, you know, the people on the left are always talking about, like, protecting democracy. What's democratic about suppressing information implicating one of the candidates of corruption weeks before the election? That seems kind of undemocratic to me, but, you know, who am I?
Donald Kendal:Who am I to say that? But, Jim, I've seen some commentary suggesting that this is just like Mark Zuckerberg tossing, like, Jim Jordan. They, just, like, toss him a bone while basically incurring little political damage. I kinda think that's that that's might be what it is. You know?
Donald Kendal:Like, the Jim Jordan types could, like, run around and kinda celebrate this, like, borderline confession, and then Facebook will just go on doing whatever it wants to do for, you know, time infinitum. What do you what do you think? You better unmute yourself, sir.
Jim Lakely:Alright. Sorry. I was typing kind of furiously there, and I know that it could get get get a little clickety clackety over here when, when I start to when a when a gym rant, you know, moves to my fingers, it could get kind of noisy. So, look. Don't get me started on Jim Jordan, the Republicans over, I guess, the oversight committee that has been holding hearings on these sorts of things.
Jim Lakely:They are empty. They are pointless. A lot of the stuff that they go over on those things are rehashes of what we've talked about on this podcast and what other people have talked about on other podcasts, and on free speech social media outlets like Elon Musk has now made at x. It's all just a bunch of grand standing. You know, the crimes are being committed here.
Jim Lakely:These are crimes. Who's going to jail? Who's brought up on any charges? Why isn't a republican, attorney state attorney general somewhere, filing charges against the people who have perpetuated a a sigh up, a fraud upon the American people. I mean, apparently apparently, you can you can get anybody.
Jim Lakely:You can get you can you apparently get any Democrat prosecutor in any backwater anywhere in the country to drum to trump up some BS charges against Donald Trump. But when there are obvious crimes going on, nothing is ever done. So I don't wanna hear from Jim Jordan anymore on this. I really don't. I am I am fed up with this nonsense.
Jim Lakely:There are no consequences for the people who are manipulating and scamming the American people in the middle of an election in order to make sure that the ruling regime is never is never challenged. To make sure at bottom that the American people do not get the government they vote for. And until and unless some people start going to jail for this. If you could send a grandma who got a selfie inside the ropes at the at the US Capitol on a certain date in the past that we cannot say or else it gets flagged here on Google's YouTube, but if that grandma can get has to go to jail for taking a selfie after being invited in and still being inside the ropes, Where is any justification for not going after these people criminally for the things they have done? These the people people don't even lose their jobs.
Jim Lakely:People in our regime government get promoted for this stuff. So it has to make you wonder, what is our government doing? Why are the how do they even have any legitimacy at this point when this is the kind of activity they engage in?
Chris Talgo:Well, first of all, it's not it's not congress's, job to hold this accountable. Their job is just to expose it. Congress can't subpoena. Can't congress can't do anything. So, I mean, I don't blame Jim Jordan for any of this.
Chris Talgo:I I don't blame
Jim Lakely:him, but I'm I'm sick of hearing him. You know? All he does is all he does
Donald Kendal:is Would
Chris Talgo:you rather that he just not expose it? I mean, I don't understand what your point is.
Jim Lakely:Because there's no there's no there's no consequences through government or through congress for any of this activity.
Chris Talgo:But there's Jim Jordan where is
Jim Lakely:Jim Jordan calling where is Jim Jordan calling for prosecution? Where is he calling for a Surely why republican
Chris Talgo:people to do that? Are you sure about that? I mean, isn't that kind of exactly what we argue against almost all the time that we don't want government, you know, getting in I mean, I I I just I disagree personally. Alright. Fine.
Donald Kendal:Well, what what's what's the proper channels that should happen, Chris?
Chris Talgo:Gee. I mean, that's a loaded question that would take a long time to to answer. It's a lot of complexities here. I mean, like we said, section 230, I think, needs to be revisited. This goes back to the 1996 Telecommunications Decency Act.
Chris Talgo:I did once again, I I just don't think that a congressman from Ohio should be, you know, should be held accountable for what Facebook does and doesn't do years after the fact. I think Jim Jordan, what he's doing is he's trying to, you know, get the word out to the American people, and that's all he can do. So and once again, I mean, I don't I don't know if you necessarily I mean, like like, do you wanna put Mark Zuckerberg in jail? Like, I don't wanna do that. I don't think he deserves to go to jail.
Chris Talgo:If anything, you know, I I I would rather have, you know, more competition and and and let the free market, solve this problem in and of itself.
Donald Kendal:It's just like Mark Zuckerberg comes out with some letter, like, yeah. I committed murder and stuff, but, you know, that was years ago, and I'm changing my ways. I'm not gonna do any murder anymore. And, like, see, he did admit to murder. Alright.
Donald Kendal:Let's go on and talk about something else.
Jim Lakely:Just just just one one last thing. A young man named Douglas Mackey made a meme during the election. Joke a joke. A joke meme urging Democrats to vote on Wednesday instead of Tuesday during the 2020, 2016 election. He served jail time for that because he was in and and he was charged with election interference.
Jim Lakely:And so until and unless the the actual people interfering our elections have some sort of criminal punishment for it, we're gonna continue to live in not the country that we think we live in, which is a free one. Yeah.
Chris Talgo:It's I mean, I I I I, you know, I I also think that, you know, there's a there's a it's a lot more, you know, violent crime that the, FBI should be, you know, focused on, and I don't want them policing, you know, you know, platforms. I just don't I don't think that that's a
Jim Lakely:I don't wanna put Mark Zuckerberg in jail. I wanna put FBI agents in jail.
Chris Talgo:Okay.
Donald Kendal:Alright. Alright. We're we're we're we're going off the rails here. Let's,
Chris Talgo:just a little authoritarian, but whatever.
Donald Kendal:Let's let's let's alright. Let's move on. Maybe we have to do a whole episode on this. We have to revisit every aspect of, of this story because
Chris Talgo:Well, I mean, it's it's it's very it's very complicated, you know, and and to just say, like, oh, like, throw the guy in jail. I mean, I just think that that's, you know, very reactionary.
Jim Lakely:It's not authoritarian to put criminals in jail. So I'm going to say we can move on.
Chris Talgo:What crime did he commit?
Jim Lakely:What crime did Douglas Mackey commit? Charge him with the same thing. Oh,
Chris Talgo:come on. Can you answer the question? I mean, what crime did Mark Zuckerberg commit?
Jim Lakely:I didn't say put Mark Zuckerberg in jail. I don't want him in jail. I want the FBI agents who perpetuated this fraud in jail.
Donald Kendal:Okay. So last week, we did a great episode focusing on addressing a handful of Kamala Harris's economic policy proposals. We talked about the inflationary effects of $25,000 to new home buyers. We talked about the disastrous implications of price controls. We talked about the mountain of new taxes that she would levy on, you know, basically all facets of the of the economy.
Donald Kendal:And we also talked about the no taxes on tips policy that she just flat out stole from Donald Trump campaign. We really went into depth on on all of these economic policies. So if you haven't checked that episode out, you definitely should. This week, I want to do a similar episode, but this time focusing on her energy and climate policy proposals. However, I realized pretty quickly that this was going to be, pretty much impossible because as far as I'm aware, Harris has not established many official positions on much of anything, when it comes to her presidential campaign.
Donald Kendal:In fact, much of what I'm able to find is statements made on her behalf, that seems to contradict positions that she's held in the past. So I want to go through a handful of these. We'll we'll get into depth on some of these different things, but, I think it is kind of revealing of the current state of politics that we find ourselves in now. But let's start with fracking. So hydraulic fracturing, of course, is the revolutionary process that became popular, I don't know, 15 years ago, something like that, that unlocked huge quantities of natural gas, led to massive drops of energy prices.
Donald Kendal:Gas prices essentially made American energy independence possible. So, of course, Democrats hated it. We haven't talked about fracking in a while, but I know that we've done entire episodes dispelling the myths conjured up by environmentalists and leftists, like how fracking is making water flammable, stuff like that. So since fracking came on the scene, many democrats demonized the practice to earn some environmentalist points, Kamala Harris being one of those. There's a bunch of clips out there of Kamala talking about fracking.
Donald Kendal:I just have I just have one for you today just so we don't have to have you listen to her unnecessarily. So let's go ahead and play Kamala Harris talking about fracking, please.
Kamala Harris:There's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking. So yeah. And and and starting and starting with what we can do on day 1 around public lands. Right? And, and then there has to be legislation, but, yes.
Kamala Harris:And this is something I've taken on in California. I have a history of working on this issue. And to your point, and, you know, that we have to just acknowledge that the residual impact of fracking is enormous in terms of the impact on the health and safety of communities. Yeah. So thank you.
Donald Kendal:Yep. There are, there are many quotes out there, many clips of her out there. No question I'm in favor of banning fracking. She's committed to ending fracking once and for all, bunch of different stuff talking about fracking. And Trump, to his credit, has made a point to call out Harris for this, you know, this endorsement of banning fracking.
Donald Kendal:And Harris, in response, acknowledged her position on fracking while explaining why she feels it's bad for the environment. No. I'm just kidding. Instead, her campaign is just denying that she ever believed that in the first place. So I've got, the one story from Politico here that, it's it, starts off with a statement from the Harris campaign that says Trump's false claims about fracking bans are an obvious attempt to distract from his own plans to enrich oil and gas executives at the expense of the middle class, the Harris campaign said in the statement.
Donald Kendal:The Biden Harris administration passed the largest ever climate change legislation, and under their leadership, America has the highest ever domestic energy production. And in a follow-up email to Politico, the campaign spokesperson added, straight up, she would not ban fracking. So, Chris, I'm gonna start off with you on this one. What are your what are your what are your thoughts on this, seemingly about face from, Kamala Harris when it comes to this important issue of fracking?
Chris Talgo:Well, first, I think she should be thrown in jail. Just kidding. No. So, like, I mean, this is just what I expect from Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris on several occasions has come out and said that she wanna ban fracking.
Chris Talgo:This is a known fact, and this is not from 10 years ago. This is from a few years ago during her last campaign when she ran for president. She has not she has not, disavowed this position yet. But one of her campaign staff in an email to politicos just says that she has, and we're supposed to take that as, you know, a a a guarantee proof that she has. No.
Chris Talgo:That's not gonna that is not gonna work. And, you know, this is just one of many issues, especially energy issues, where she is telling a, you know, a a very different tale than she was just a couple of years ago. And, you know, everyone's gonna say, well, all politicians flip flop. I understand that. Of course, they do.
Chris Talgo:They evolve. But this is not an evolution. This is a complete and utter transformation in in the blink of an eye, And we're supposed to just think that she has internally changed her mind in all these things. Of course, she hasn't. Really, what this is about, because it it could not be more obvious.
Chris Talgo:What she's trying to do is she's trying to appeal to the independents, to those, you know, to those voters who are kinda on the fence still and think, well, man, is Kamala Harris gonna be a really radical, presidential candidate? And that's what she's trying to do. She's trying to, you know, to to to get those voters to think, no. She's not. She's gonna be, you know, a more moderate.
Chris Talgo:But never forget that Joe Biden did the exact same thing in 2020. You know, I think a lot of people have forgotten that Joe Biden promised he would be a moderate, that he would govern down the middle, that he would bring us together and all this stuff. Guess what? He didn't do that. And we knew beforehand because he signed on to this Bernie Sanders, basically platform.
Chris Talgo:So this is just the same exact thing happening in real time, but it's happening at a much, I I think, exaggerated level, and it's happening in a shorter time span. And, I mean, really, what what's scary is I think I think this might work. I think that really what might happen here is they just might say, you know what? We're gonna keep her under wraps and just not answer these questions. I highly doubt that Dana Bash tonight when, Kamala and Tim Walz appear on this big CNN interview, that's not gonna be live.
Chris Talgo:It's gonna be edited. So it's pretaped. It's gonna it's gonna be edited. It's apparently, they're gonna talk for an hour, but they're only gonna, you know, show maybe, like, 15, you know, minutes of this or so. They're gonna take the best parts of it.
Chris Talgo:And, of course, they're gonna get rid of all the, you know, the gas and all the laughs and all the, you know, the the, you know, word salons, and they're just gonna the mainstream media is trying to do everything they can to, fulfill this myth that Kamala Harris is a moderate. When she's not, her voting record proves it. Not only her voting record, but her her, you know, her, speeches, her town halls from just a few years ago. So, you know, obviously, for anyone who pays attention, they know that Kamala Harris is a, you know, is a radical, total radical through and through. But the mainstream media is trying their best to, you know, to ignore that and to pull the wool over, you know, Americans' eyes.
Chris Talgo:And, I mean, right now, I think I think it could work.
Donald Kendal:So they're recording for an hour. You said that there's gonna be, you know, edited. Likely, they're gonna cut out all the all the words, salad, and all of that stuff. So at the end of the day, it's gonna be, like, a 5 minute interview. Is that
Chris Talgo:so No. I mean, I I no. No. I heard that they're gonna release, you know, about 15 minutes of it, but they're gonna but but what what what should be happening here is she should be taking this live solo. She should be taking this live solo.
Donald Kendal:Well yeah. And, Jim, I'm gonna throw it to you with this because, like, you would think that, a pretty big reversal on an issue like this, that's, you know, a pretty big issue when it comes to energy, which is a big issue in itself. A big reversal like this, you would think that that would raise some questions in the media, maybe a press conference is needed. If we had a legitimate media, you'd think they would have her question her to have her explain her change of heart on this issue. I'm not gonna hold my breath.
Donald Kendal:What do you think is gonna happen here?
Jim Lakely:Oh, yeah. I mean, Chris pointed out that the, the supposed reversal of policy has not come from Kamala Harris herself. It's come from sometimes anonymous campaign sources for the for the, Harris campaign saying, no. No. No.
Jim Lakely:She doesn't she doesn't mean that. And you should always apply this to, say, the Trump campaign. Let's just say he completely reversed himself on well, let's say he reversed himself on building a wall. Right? As as insane as that sounds, let's just say that one day to appeal to moderates that Donald Trump said, you know what?
Jim Lakely:I'm changing my mind. We're not gonna build a wall. It would be reported far and wide because it would severely damage Donald Trump's standing among his political base.
Donald Kendal:Sure.
Jim Lakely:So so what does so what's happening right now is that, of course, Kamala has said in the past with much conviction, as much as she can muster, that, she wants to ban fracking. All of it. It's gone. Now when the Biden administration came into power, one of the first things they did was put a moratorium on all fracking on federal lands. And then they followed it followed that up with a direction from the Department of the Interior to never approve any more new leases for fracking on federal lands.
Jim Lakely:And you add that in with, Kamala Harris saying in that, day long torture session known as the climate town hall on CNN from back in 2019 that we covered on this very podcast.
Chris Talgo:It was
Jim Lakely:a lot of fun. That that she was in favor of banning fracking and and for the reasons that she stated that it's an environmental danger and blah blah blah blah. So when she's and she was asked that question, which I think is also important by a climate activist who was invited to be in that town hall, obviously, to ask that very specific question. Now, again, her just denying this through spokespeople is not sufficient. If you wanna give her change of heart any benefit of the doubt, which I don't, and I don't think any thinking people should.
Jim Lakely:But if you were, it is incumbent upon the media, and Dana Bash tonight should be asking this, to explain her change of heart on fracking and all sorts of other issues that she apparently has changed, she's had a change of heart on. For instance, taxing tips. The Biden administration's IRS was going after as a specific project to make sure that, hardworking, you know, servers at restaurants and other places where you collect tips are paying their full tax on all of those tips that they receive as income. Have her explain why she has, reversed field on that and just completely stolen Donald Trump's idea on that, which he's been touting for many months and has been very popular. But she has to explain I don't think she can, but it's incumbent upon our media to ask her to explain how and why she came about this change of heart to not ban fracking anymore because her statement previous could not have been more clear and definitive.
Chris Talgo:Well, Donnie, I just gotta add something to this. So aside from the fracking stuff, in 2019, at at another CNN town hall, she was asked about cosponsoring the Green New Deal. Kamala Harris was a an original cosponsor of the Green New Deal.
Donald Kendal:One of only a few.
Chris Talgo:Yes. And in the Green New Deal, it calls for a 100% renewable energy economy by 2050. So, you know, how how does fracking fit into that? It obviously doesn't. And and in in the CNN clip, and I don't know if you guys can find it.
Chris Talgo:I don't know if it's, you know, too late to to find this. She said that she would actually, support ending the filibuster to get the green new deal passed if she were the president, and she would sign that. So not only would she sign the green new deal, which would literally destroy the fossil fuel industry in one fell swoop, but she would also destroy one of the, like, one of the last institutions, one of the last bulwarks against a majority rural mobocracy by, by eliminating the filibuster. Mhmm. So, I mean, there are just so many different things going on here.
Chris Talgo:Remember, she also wants to add a couple new states, DC and Puerto Rico. She also wants to, pad the supreme court, you know, pack the bench. So there's a whole bunch of stuff here that that, you know, would would also be, you know, would also occur under this scenario. It is just a complete farce to say that Kamala Harris is not in favor of banning fracking based on the votes that she's cast in congress. Yeah.
Chris Talgo:And we're not talking about, like, Joe Biden, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago. We're talking about she was she was, a senator from 2017 and 2021.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. That's that's a great point. It's like we could find, clips that are, you know, contradicting Joe Biden's current stance of something he said 65 years ago when he was, you know, first in congress or something like that. That's a long time ago. Kamala Harris, little shorter time span.
Donald Kendal:There's there's a a newer one, another issue. This was a little bit kind of newer development here, so, stick with me. Apparently, Kamala Harris is not in favor of any electric vehicle mandates. So the Harris campaign this week sent out a fact check email in response to supposed lies from Trump's running mate, JD Vance. In the email, it says, quote, vice president Harris does not support an electric vehicle mandate.
Donald Kendal:Just as clear as that. Right? Well, great. EV mandates in any form or fashion are terrible policy. I'm happy that Kamala, is supposedly against them.
Donald Kendal:However, to feel confident that this is her position, I feel like I need something more than just like a campaign staff's word on the matter, especially considering Kamala Harris has quite a history in favoring EV mandates. So, back when AOC was championing her, Green New Deal, then senator Harris was one of the only supporters of that legislation, legislation that would require a 100% clean energy by 2040. Also, as a senator, Harris was a cosponsor of the 0 Emissions Vehicle Act in 2019. This proposed bill would have required a 100% of new car sales, to be electric vehicles or otherwise emissions free by 2040. When running for president in 2020, Harris proposed having all new car sales be 0 emissions by 2035.
Donald Kendal:So, I mean, if you're looking at the years of implementation here, she's getting even more ambitious as time's gone on. Later as VP, according to a Fox Business report, Harris was also charged with helping lead the electric vehicle charging action plan in December of 2021 to ensure 50% of car sales were electric vehicles by 2030. The article goes on saying the Biden Harris administration further cracked down on, on this plan, this year, with one of the most significant climate regulations in US history. It would force half of all new cars and trucks sold in 2030 to be electric. And this isn't to mention all the various programs and grants and subsidies carried out by the Biden Harris administration to prop up the EV industry.
Donald Kendal:So, you know, again, was this just a recent change of heart, Jim? Surely, they could have made an announcement or something signaling a reversal on this pretty controversial energy issue. What are your thoughts on this one?
Jim Lakely:Well, you know, I I he was just saying in the in the private chat with us that, I have all the receipts on her, EV policies and that of the administration. And then you've managed to independently, not even working together, read out each one of my receipts and wave it to the camera. So I don't know.
Donald Kendal:We can play that video if you'd like. I forgot that we had that one on deck. Yeah.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. Yeah. So yes. Let's let's so I gathered because this is the one that's most recent. It's just from just from this week.
Jim Lakely:So this is a new thing that that Kamala Harris is running from and that we're supposed to and the media and the public's supposed to buy it, that she is not in favor of mandating EVs, but we have, even video receipts.
Donald Kendal:Alright. Let's go ahead and play that clip.
Kamala Harris:The auto industry is clearly moving toward electric. We need to make the shift faster and make sure it is driven by the United States. That means manufacturing millions of electric cars, trucks, and buses right here in our country. That means outfitting thousands of EV electric vehicle repair garages just like this one. And it means installing a national network of EV chargers.
Kamala Harris:So will everyone have to drive electric cars? Well, by my plan, by 2045, we will have, basically, 0 emission vehicles only, 100% by 2045. And there's no sound or fuel.
Jim Lakely:There there is nothing. Yes.
Donald Kendal:Checking in.
Jim Lakely:And that's all there is.
Kamala Harris:Who are used to
Jim Lakely:Every morning
Kamala Harris:filling our tank, we we you usually can smell it and and you can hear it. You can hear the guzzling sound.
Donald Kendal:Right.
Kamala Harris:None of that.
Chris Talgo:None of that.
Kamala Harris:So how do I know it's actually working? It is.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. So I I love the end of that clip there where she's still she's squeezing the the the charger handle like like like a gas. Like, I
Donald Kendal:guess electricity comes out. I'm pretty sure that's how it works.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. It's like, you know, there's somebody put a joke. You can let go now, Carmel. It's fine. You know?
Jim Lakely:You just plug it in and leave it. So gosh. I don't know. But, so yeah. So so that's it's, you know, Michael Shellenberger, who we've had on this podcast in the past, he now has a very popular substack.
Jim Lakely:You know, he he made the point this week that the gas the media gaslighting on behalf of Kamala is now reaching totalitarian levels, and it's hard not to, it's hard to argue that he's not correct in that one. I mean, it's to the point where even Politico is writing headlines, which they had to take down, that, JD Vance tries to tether Harris to Biden during a a Michigan rally. I mean, she's only the vice president. It it's only that the letterhead on every White House declaration says the Biden Harris administration, but it's only the Republicans that are trying to tether Kamala Harris to the policies of the administration that she is number 2 in. And it's a bunch of number 2 as policy anyway, if you ask me.
Jim Lakely:But, the the the EV thing, though, it's this is another gaslighting thing, and and I've actually heard this. We've gotten I've gotten a a couple emails actually when we cover we cover electric vehicles a lot, and their folly on this podcast and also on the Climate Realism Show, which is on Fridays at 1 PM EST on the same channel. And we get I get pushback sometimes from people saying, there's no there's no electric vehicle mandate. There's there's no mandate for, for EVs. And, you know, as as you pointed out by by when you lay out the policies, the the Biden administration is through its Environmental Protection Agency, is making the emission standards for traditional vehicles, vehicles that people want, so stringent that there would be no choice but to go all electric.
Jim Lakely:Actually, mostly hybrid, you know, some hybrid and mostly electric, but certainly in the next decade or so, 15 years, you wouldn't be able to produce a gasoline powered vehicle under the EPA mandates envisioned by the Biden administration. And just and just this Tuesday, the New York Post actually laid a lot of this out in a story that they, that they had. They said that after model year 2040 and this see, this is the thing. It is a mandate. If government is enforcing the policy, it's a mandate.
Jim Lakely:That's it that's it by definition. And in that 0 Emissions Vehicles Act, which, come as you pointed out, Donnie, Kamala Harris had sponsored in, as a senator in April 2019, it says here this is from the bill. After model year 2040, the Environmental Protection Agency may issue an injunction on the manufacturer of any passenger vehicles other than 0 emission vehicles by a vehicle manufacturer. That's a ban. That is the EPA saying you can't make a, a Ford f 150 pickup truck anymore.
Jim Lakely:That's that's the EPA saying that, you know, Chevy can't make a Camaro anymore unless it's electric. And so, again, I I might actually watch whatever clips are are released by CNN of this supposed sit down interview with, Kamala Harris and as Megyn Kelly called him, Kamala's, emotional support governor, Tim Walz, sitting next to her. I might actually watch some of that just to see if if Dana Bash and CNN have the barest minimum of credibility and ask about these sorts of issues in exactly this right way by putting their own words and actions and policies in their faces.
Donald Kendal:Chris, you holding your breath for that? Do you think that there's any chance of something like that happening? I think that, I I think you're absolutely right. You said it earlier in the show that, like, the strategy is to just just let her let's just let her be like a mirror that will reflect whatever any potential voter wants to see, in that mirror. So the way to keep having that illusion going is by not specifically outlining anything that she stands for.
Donald Kendal:Is she is she against fracking? Well, yeah, if you if you if she's around certain people. Is she not for banning fracking? Well, yeah. Yeah.
Donald Kendal:When she's around certain people. What do you think?
Chris Talgo:What I think what really is gonna matter is the follow-up question. Because if Dana Bash asks, Kamala, have you completely changed your mind on fracking and now you're forward? And she goes, yes. Or you're you're you know, like, just says some, some, answer that's been basically, you know, pre pre you know, already made for her. I I would really hope that Dana Bash says, okay.
Chris Talgo:Now can you explain why? Or just I mean, because if you know, for someone who does watch the Sunday shows in MSNBC and CNN, one of the things that's I've I've noticed, is that when a republican is on, like Tom Cotton was on, ABC, this week with and Jonathan Karl was hosting, and, Jonathan Karl asked him a question, and Tom, senator Cotton gave an answer. And then Jonathan Karl car Carl, just went out of his way to just follow-up, follow-up, follow-up, and follow-up. And and it was it was actually pretty argumentative. It it you know, it was a it was a viral clip.
Chris Talgo:I cannot remember that ever happening to either Joe Biden, you know, Hillary Clinton, you know, Barack Obama, like, anyone for that matter. So, really, it's not it's not the question that she asks. It's how willing she is to follow-up and really try to get to the truth, you know, of of what's going on here. And I I doubt that that's gonna happen.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. And it's not even just like the fracking and, and, and the EV mandates. I mean, those are, like, 2 things that we very specifically seen, like, contradictory statements made. But, like, it goes for pretty much everything. I feel like everything's in question.
Donald Kendal:You know? Like, is is she in favor of, you know, like, new pipelines or, like, stopping the construction of new pipelines? How about the Biden administration's pause on liquefied natural gas export approvals? About oil exploration on federal lands, is she for this stuff or is she against this stuff? Are we just supposed to guess?
Donald Kendal:Chris, when we were talking about some of this, yesterday, you were saying how you went you were like you you've made a habit of going to her, like, official campaign website, and there's, like, essentially no policies there. Like
Chris Talgo:not essentially. There are 0. There are 0 policies listed. The only thing there is the about Kamala, about Tim, and then the donate, you know, areas. So that's that's what her campaign website, you know, shows right now.
Chris Talgo:You know, Johnny, this is much more about the the energy policies, and then we're focusing on that here. But I really hope that in this interview later tonight, they actually started asking her about some of her economic policies as well because those are really important. And I so one of the things that the Harris campaign is trying to do is they're trying to, paint Donald Trump as the incumbent, and that's not obviously not the case. The the the real case is that Kamala Harris is the half incumbent. And, you know, when they start when she starts talking about how we need to do all these these these changes and how, you know, all she has all these these grand plans, the question is, but why haven't you done them already?
Chris Talgo:Why and and and and if you disagreed with the with the with with the Biden, you know, Bidenomics, then why didn't you say anything? Because, actually, there are hundreds of clips where she is in a lockstep with Joe Biden in terms of economic, Bidenomics and bragging about it on multiple occasions. So she cannot have this both ways. And one of the things that I have seen so far is that the Trump campaign and, the the, you know, GOP backs seem to be doing a very good job of actually saying, look. This is her in her own words.
Chris Talgo:Don't buy this this this narrative that all of a sudden, just because she's the, the the candidate now that she's changed her mind in all this stuff, that's just not true. Also, you know, they're trying to portray her as this, person who, you know, grew up in the streets of Oakland. That's also not true. She grew up in Berkeley. She grew up in Berkeley, California.
Chris Talgo:Okay? That is the most progressive enclave of anywhere in the world, most likely. So she's not an Oakland, you know, you know, hard knock living, you know, like, what lady. She's just not. She's from Berkeley.
Chris Talgo:She has been, you know, in in just a in in in every single job she's had, whether it's the DA or, you know, senator, she has been a she has been as far left as you can get. So why why all of a sudden should we buy this this this, you know, this notion that she's just literally changed her mind on everything? You know? That is just it it it is it's actually insulting to the American voters. And really good it go ahead.
Donald Kendal:I I've heard that she grew up, you know, listening to Snoop Dogg and stuff. So I'm pretty sure that she
Chris Talgo:get a time machine because when she was in college, she she said that she was listening to to Snoop Dogg and Tupac, but they weren't even, rapping yet when she was in college. So that is another of this complete and utter lie. So this woman obviously is a liar. She's you know, what we we really just take a giant step back and think about this. A couple months ago, most of the mainstream media, most Democrats were saying, get her off the ticket.
Chris Talgo:She's she's terrible. Now all of a sudden, they want us to say, oh, she's the she she's the next, you know, the next Barack Obama. Right. No. She's not.
Chris Talgo:She's not, and she's never gonna be. And she's an idiot. And she is an idiot. And despite despite the mainstream media, you know, hiding and and and just doing Donnie, they're not only hiding. They're actually, like, arguing in favor of her, which is I told you, I was like, wow.
Chris Talgo:This is, like, all new to me because I remember many times, you know, when, Barack Obama was running and, you know, Clinton was running, even Biden was running. The media, they still treated Trump terribly, obviously, but they didn't go, like, this far out of their way to defend Biden.
Donald Kendal:No. No. Yeah. Yesterday, you mentioned something about how, like, the way that, like, the, media is treating Kamala Harris and her campaign is, like, tantamount to, like, journalistic malpractice. And I said, like, no.
Donald Kendal:No. I'm, like, it's worse than that. Journalistic malpractice has, like, a connotation of, like, oh, whoops. You know? I I slipped up when I was making an incision, like, by a doctor or something like that.
Donald Kendal:This is just propaganda. They're just painting an image of her while while she's, like, hiding, you know, off screen or something like that. This is just straight up propaganda.
Chris Talgo:But I do wonder and, Donnie, we've had this conversation before. If we are putting too much emphasis on the mainstream media, because I think we've we've gotta always remember that most Americans don't get their news from the mainstream media. Now, yeah, you can make the argument that the mainstream media kinda, like, sets the the the the news narrative.
Donald Kendal:Yeah.
Chris Talgo:However, most people, especially young people, get their news from social media. Sure. So, you know, I I think, you know, obviously, I watch the mainstream media, but I'm not nearly as, you know, I I'm not on social media. So I don't know how all these social media influencers in in in in the social media, you know, universe is treating come Kamala, but I bet it's probably pretty similar. And that to me is, then we're in really big trouble.
Chris Talgo:If you've got social media, you know, the the the new media, you know, working with the legacy media, there's just, like, no way of, you know, getting getting getting around it. So that that that to me is a really worrisome, trend that's No.
Donald Kendal:I I think I think like that the the corporate media kind of sets sets the narrative, and then it trickles down from there, and it goes into the the SNLs and the late night shows and all of that. And they have the guests on that just say all the the garbage, and then those get clipped out and shared on social media. So it does filter down through all of these different avenues. And then when you've got people that just kinda wanna play into this, like, you know, this this narrative. Right?
Donald Kendal:Like, whether or not they're, like, part of some official conspiracy is not required because they all have the same end goal, which is defeating Donald Trump. So if they just run with this, regardless of how it specifically benefits them, it's just this larger, greater good thing. And I've got another article. I don't think I shared this one in the, in the show notes, but I'll share it with Andy right now. This is a piece, that I found pretty interesting.
Donald Kendal:This is from the oh, no. I shared the wrong one. Whatever. Don't pull that up. But this is a piece this is a piece from, Politico.
Donald Kendal:I'll try to share the link when somebody else starts commenting where it's like talking about how some environmentalist groups, and their response to Kamala Harris's lack of policy details. And it talks about 1 guy, a chief political strategist from the Center For Biological Diversity Action Fund, talking about how we don't wanna sabotage her campaign for no valid reason. And the article the author of the article basically sums up everything in the article saying that the strategy for some of these environmentalist groups appears to be get Kamala Harris elected now, and then we'll ask questions later. So it's just like it's like everyone's playing by those.
Chris Talgo:I I I I know exactly what you're talking about, and I saw an interview with, someone I think at a at a similar organization. And, really, what they were doing is just wink, wink. We know she's on our side. We know if she wins that she's actually gonna do all this stuff, but we can't just really come flat out and say it now because, you know, we still are trying to appeal to those independents and to those moderate voters. That is that that is really, you know, just scary, and it it's also evil.
Chris Talgo:It's evil to say, hi. If you vote for me, I'm actually gonna you know, I I I'm gonna say I'm gonna do this, but, actually, I'm gonna do that, which is exactly what Joe Biden did. You know? Like like or hate Donald Trump. At least he said, hey.
Chris Talgo:This hey. Vote for me. This is what I think. He has not changed his mind on those on those beliefs. Those beliefs are, you know, foundational to him, and he's been he's had those beliefs for for decades now.
Chris Talgo:So you know that he's authentic. You know that he's genuine. You know that he actually believes what he's saying. With Kamala Harris, it's the total opposite.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. So I think the question I think the question the question is, Jim, will Kamala return to her green new deal supporting, fracking, banning EV, mandating former self when she becomes elected, or is this this new Kamala Harris of the future that's moderate and can play to those heartland of America types? What do you think?
Jim Lakely:Well, Kamala is a Marxist. So what do you think? Yeah. The Marxist changed their changed their stripes? No.
Jim Lakely:And she wouldn't be returning to anything. She hasn't left anything. The performance of the corporate, political press in the United States, is is is making the the the media in North Korea look credible by comparison. I'm serious. This is this is truly an extraordinary moment in, in media and and cultural and political history in United States.
Jim Lakely:We have a we have a major candidate we we have a candidate for president in one of the 2 major parties of the United States who didn't receive a single vote in primaries, not even when she tried running and and getting the nomination, instead of Joe Biden back in 2020. Not a single primary vote from anybody in the country, who, as Chris pointed out, the media was treating as a huge liability to, to the the defeat of Donald Trump in the, in the 2024 election if she was still on the ticket with Joe Biden at the top. We had a press that was telling us for weeks months on end that anybody who noticed the obvious, mental decline of Joe Biden as president of the United States was, engaging in misinformation and lying, and, even the videos were being doctored to make it look like he was losing his marbles. And then as soon as that was exposed for everybody to see at the first debate and only debate, as it turns out, between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, suddenly, they flip on a dime and they dump him out, and, you know, everybody knows that Obama was the one, working this behind the scenes, to get Biden off the ticket yet still be president.
Jim Lakely:He's now what? On his his, like, 14th day of vacation. He doesn't do anything. He's had nothing on his public schedule for most of the last month and a half, except for getting the daily, intelligence briefing, which had make makes me really feel good and safe as an American knowing that Donald that, Joe Biden is still getting the intelligence briefing so that he's gonna be on the ball and on top of things in case there's any threats to United States. But after all of that, now we have Kamala Harris presented to us in a, in in a sycophantic way in the Democratic National Convention in which she's completely remade.
Jim Lakely:Literally 20 minutes ago, she was, she was who she has always been and displayed herself in public, a moron and a Marxist. And now she is it's about the election of joy. And so our media now is trying to sell a candidate that can't even can't even cut and paste the democratic platform from the DNC that just happened a week ago and put it on their web page. They can't be bothered to do that. So we we were we had a a candidacy of Joe Biden foisted upon us from his basement in 2020, and now we're getting basically the equivalent of basement campaign, number 2 with Kamala Harris, where the press is not asking her.
Jim Lakely:They're they're they're they're not even they don't even have opportunities to ask her any questions Mhmm. Let alone what whatever those answers may end up being one day. But she's running a completely policy free campaign. This is unbelievable that this is happening. And I guess we're gonna see you know, I saw something the polls right now show at a very tight race.
Jim Lakely:Some polls show Kamala Harris pulling ahead in some swing states and nationally. Although, I did see, an an ex post the other day, somebody quoted from inside the campaign saying, this race is a lot closer than the public polls would have you believe, which tells me that, this gaslighting and fluffing campaign by our media for the Democrats and Kamala Harris probably doesn't have as much legs as they hope, because even in political it's only what is it? August 29th. In political terms, you know, November 4th is a long way away. A lot can happen, and especially when they finally get to debate.
Jim Lakely:There's a reason why Tim Walz is sitting next to Kamala Harris in that interview with Dana Bash tonight because the campaign cannot trust her to sit there on her own. He will be jumping in and to help explain policies and to just, you know, try to get her to talk as less as possible. When it's, 1 on 1 in that debate, coming up when is that? I think September 4th or September 10th. Yeah.
Jim Lakely:September 10th. It's gonna be a whole different story. She will we'll we'll see how she performs on her own without Annette even with the most friendliest press possible. It'd be like you if if I was running for office and, like, you were asking me questions, Donnie, and especially you, Chris, you'd be a lot tougher on me than the press is gonna be on Kamala Harris.
Chris Talgo:What let me let me just give you guys one optimistic, vision here. One of the things that people have been saying is is that Kamala Harris has a tendency to get up to a very strong start in campaigns and then fizzle out. And they they point to the 2019 when she ran for president. She had this huge crowd in, in Oakland, ironically, not Berkeley, when she announced. And, man, there was a lot of, you know, there was a lot of momentum, a lot of enthusiasm, and then it just petered out.
Chris Talgo:And what they're saying is is that this could be happening now, and we could actually be at the beginning of this stage. Because now that she's, you know, had all the fluff of the DNC and and and some of these, you know, big or supposedly, you know, big big crowds, it's starting to kind of it's starting to kinda die down. So in in, right now, she's in Georgia doing a bus tour, and her last two appearances were at a high school. So she went and talked to kids in a in a in a band, and then she just did some other really small thing. And they're like, they don't even vote.
Chris Talgo:Why are you going there? And what they're trying what some people are saying on the right is that it's already happening. People are already starting to see through it, and it's only gonna get, worse for her from here on out. And she I I think she feels obligated that she has to do at least one interview. It's been 40 days.
Chris Talgo:It's been more than 40 days, actually, since she's just done an interview. So I think she's, you know, obviously, she's, you know, gonna do the CNN interview tonight. I probably go, like, okay. But what about when she's asked to do a bunch of other interviews? What about after the debate?
Chris Talgo:What about when she just has to speak extemporaneously on on on policies? That is not gonna go well for her. So won't do it. Yeah. I mean
Jim Lakely:They'll they'll just have her not do it. They'll just say we're gonna get we'll just plug for you to November and and try to keep her as out of the public eye as much as possible. It's amazing.
Chris Talgo:And I I I agree, but do you really think that for the next 2 months that they can just hide her? This is not COVID. This is not 2020. The whole reason they they got away with the basement campaign of 2020 was COVID. There's no COVID.
Chris Talgo:There's there there's no excuse to not have around there.
Donald Kendal:No. No. It for them to get away with it for them to get away with it or not get away with it would require somebody in the establishment corporate media to actually, like, sound the alarm on it and raise a fuss. Because, like, if anybody on the right side of the aisle, the Fox Newses and The Blaze and The Daily Wires, if they, like, say, look. She's not doing anything or, like, we on this show saying, oh, no.
Donald Kendal:She's not doing anything. Nobody's gonna care.
Chris Talgo:No. But So they're
Donald Kendal:just gonna keep going.
Chris Talgo:It's funny that you bring it up because that's what one that's what one of the, the people who I was I watched this interview. That's what he was saying. He was saying is that, eventually, the the the mainstream media are gonna get sick and tired of being ghosted by Kamala, and they're and they're gonna say, like, hey. You have to come out here and, like, answer these questions. And if she doesn't do it, then then he said he thinks I mean, obviously, this guy is speculating.
Chris Talgo:He thinks that then they're gonna turn on her because then they're gonna say, hey. Wait a second. You're x you're you're you're not even, like, helping us. So why why should we help you? Because right now, she's basically just, you know, giving them the finger and just saying, hey.
Chris Talgo:I I don't I don't, I don't, you know, I'm not even gonna, you know, do interviews with you. And this this guy, he thinks, and I kind of agree with him on some of these things, that eventually that's gonna produce some sort of anger and frustration within the mainstream media in which then they'd say, okay. You wanna, like, play horrible? Then we're gonna now actually gonna expose you. I mean, obviously, that's I'd I'd say that that's far fetched, but I I just I I do think that over the next 2 months, from now November 5th, that she's gonna have to just make some appearances.
Chris Talgo:She's gonna have to be off teleprompter, and all it takes is a couple of word sales from Kamala for them to people to be like, oh, yeah. That's what she's like. We don't want her anywhere near the Oval Office. We don't want her sitting down with Putin 1 on 1. We don't want her sitting down with, you know, and and any world leader Xi Jinping 1 on 1.
Chris Talgo:She's afraid to even sit down with Dana Bash 1 on 1. Give me a break.
Jim Lakely:Kamala Harris's ability to avoid word salads is like my ability to avoid cheeseburgers for lunch. It's, eventually, I'm gonna have one, and I'll probably have one today. But, you know, Chris, you said that, like, they can't it's not it's not 2020. There isn't a pandemic going anymore. They can't just hire the whole time.
Jim Lakely:I I would answer that by just saying they're choosing this. It's not a great strategy, but what's worse is her actually getting out there and speaking to people extemporaneously, like every other candidate would do. They built up so much momentum for her after that Democratic National Convention, that it was the perfect time. The media wanted to keep rolling with this, baby. Let's go.
Jim Lakely:And she could not do it. She could not get out there. You you they wanted to follow all that great stuff up with with keeping her on the front page, keeping her on every every show. She didn't go on it. She has not been on a single Sunday show.
Jim Lakely:Right. Right. Right. And That's that's amazing. Of course, they wanted her.
Jim Lakely:They called and said, come on. Let's go. Let's keep that momentum going. So the campaign has decided, as bad and terrible and crazy as it seems, to keep her absolutely incognito between now and November as much as possible, that is still a better shot for them than to have her out there acting like a normal campaigner. However bad it is.
Chris Talgo:I I I agree with you. I mean, to to me, it's like they're stuck between a rock and a hard place because if they put her out there, then it's, you know, gonna backfire. But if you look at the polls right now versus where they were in 2016 and 2020, Trump is actually doing much better. So they are expecting to get this big bounce from the DNC. They didn't get a big bounce, and and the RFK stuff stole the news cycle.
Chris Talgo:So if you look at where polls are right now, this point in time, Hillary was up double digits. Biden was up double digits nationally. And then if you look at the swing states, man, Biden and Hillary were up big time in all those swing states. Right now, it's basically a toss-up in most of the swing states. So if you're telling me that over the next 2 months that support for Kamala is gonna grow, I don't buy that.
Chris Talgo:I think the more that people just get little tidbits and little attack ads from Trump and this and that and here and there, that they're gonna say, oh, yeah. That's who she is. She's crazy. I'm not gonna vote for her. So, I mean, obviously, I'm not I'm not saying that it's a lock that Donald Trump's gonna win, but I do think that right now, barring, you know, the unforeseen that is, of course, gonna occur between now and then, things look pretty damn good for the Trump campaign, actually.
Jim Lakely:Right. If if if Justin was just one last thing, and I know we wanna wrap up. But if Justin was here, he would be saying, maybe he'll be here next week. He would be saying that what matters in this election, like every other election, are independent voters and especially, you know, suburban mom independent voters, And that the only reason so everybody on the left is gonna vote for Kamala, obviously. Everybody that that watched every minute of the Democratic National Convention is gonna vote for Kamala.
Jim Lakely:You know, the problem is that if you get her out there, those base voters don't care that she has word salads. They might even think it's charming. But it's those independent voters that are the most important in the swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Georgia and Arizona and Nevada. If the more they see of Kamala Harris, the worse it's gonna be for them. They know this.
Jim Lakely:They're professionals. They see the polling. They know the electorate, and they know that it's better to go crate to to the crazy strategy
Chris Talgo:of But Jim
Jim Lakely:stay hidden for president of United States. He's hidden so much that your policies aren't even on your website.
Chris Talgo:But Jim but but but but do
Jim Lakely:you do the opposite. Opposite.
Chris Talgo:But but but do you think that the voters in those all important crucial swing states are going to vote with their wallets? Are they gonna vote with their feelings? See, now you can I mean, I think that the the bottom line of all bottom lines is they're gonna vote with their wallets? And I think that things are actually gonna get worse between now and November 5th in terms of the economy. We just had that terrible jobs we report downgrade.
Chris Talgo:Things are not looking good in terms of, you know, economic fundamentals here in the United States of America. We could be on the brink of a recession. I don't think that people are gonna are gonna vote on feelings of joy and good vibes. I think that people in Pennsylvania in particular are gonna say, wait a second. She's the reason why we're in this we're in this terrible economic place in the first place.
Chris Talgo:She can't run away from that, especially because and I think this is a really big point that the Trump campaign just has to hammer again and again and again. Kamala Harris has as president of the senate, because that's the only thing the vice president actually does, has more tiebreaking votes than any vice president in history. And guess what? She was the tiebreaking vote on the American Rescue Plan, 1,900,000,000,000 among many other, the, inflation reduction act and many others. So the fact that Kamala Harris literally was the tiebreaking vote that that she is responsible for the inflation and couple that with her the, the energy policies, which are definitely adding to inflation, how how how can she how can she run on any sort of record?
Chris Talgo:Because she is the incumbent. And this is a very strange election, but she is the, you know, the de facto incumbent whether she likes it or not. And if you think back to the beginning of the Biden Harris administration, Biden went out of his way to say, hey. This is a a, like, a a a 2 person duos duo administration. It's not like the Trump Pence administration where it's basically all new Trump was doing its thing and Pence was just Pence.
Chris Talgo:You know? That we know that we know that Kamala has had a has had a, you know, a a a expanded role in this administration. And when you look at, you know, if she was put in charge of the border, the border's a complete mess. The you know? And so I just I I still hold out some hope that the American people are gonna see through all the noise, you know, big and vote based on common sense.
Chris Talgo:Both they're gonna vote based on their wallet, this their safety, you know, education, and just those those, like, core issues. I could be completely wrong, obviously, but, you know, that's that that's my, like, gut instinct right now.
Jim Lakely:Well, look. Look. The first step to motivate the first thing about independent voters, first, you have to motivate them to wanna vote in the election in the first place. Hardcore MAGA Republicans are gonna go out to vote. This is gonna be one of those broken glass elections where they would call over broken glass, you know, in a swimsuit in order to vote for Donald Trump.
Jim Lakely:And the hardcore Democrat, Marxist left is gonna get out and vote, for Kamala Harris. It's that independence in the middle. Step 1, motivate them to vote. Kamala Harris with no policies. An election of joy is not motivating those people to vote.
Jim Lakely:What was the strategy for the Democrats until about 3 months ago? All you heard on the media and every spokesperson was out there saying, threat to democracy, threat to democracy, threat to democracy. Joe Biden out there. Donald Trump is an existential threat to our democracy. Then Donald Trump gets shot at, almost killed, and that message has kind of gone away.
Chris Talgo:They have dropped that message.
Jim Lakely:That message return when you yeah. When you see that message return, that's gonna be their attempt to motivate you to
Chris Talgo:blow it. But don't you agree the I I shouldn't I I don't wanna, like, but we're not But but but don't you think that that's a tough needle to thread when this is the the party that that that threw their their, you know, the the the guy who won their primary at the very last minute and then just put inserted, anointed, you know, this this person who who nobody nobody voted for. So how can they how can they take that we're all about democracy and, you know, upstanding, you know, values when it's blatantly obvious that that you basically just threw out the guy who your party nominated, and then you did this weird thing where 2 days later, everyone just said, yeah. We're with her.
Jim Lakely:They're not present they're not presenting any policy to run on. And if if policy is presented, then you have to run on the horrible policy decisions of the Biden Harris administration. It's gonna go right back. I'm telling you, it's gonna go right back to threat to democracy, Trump is Hitler, all that kind of stuff. It'll happen within the next 3 weeks, I think, after the debate probably.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. The Let
Chris Talgo:me ask you this. Do you think that at the debate that she will be, exposed by by Trump? Do you think
Donald Kendal:you think gonna end up being a worse debate for her than it was for Biden a few months ago.
Chris Talgo:I I don't know. I don't
Jim Lakely:know if you could do any worse. She will get the questions in advance. She will get the questions in advance. Just plan on that for sure.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. It'll be written on her arm, the answers. Yeah. So the the no. No.
Donald Kendal:It's over. It's over. Stop. The, the the thumbnail of the show, the title of the show is will the real Kamala Harris please stand up? And and the reason for that was because it seems like we're getting 2 conflicting versions of her.
Donald Kendal:The radical version, based on her history and all the things that she's had to say up until about a couple of weeks ago, And then this other version of her that's, usually being conveyed to us through some thirdhand person campaign staffer.
Chris Talgo:I I gotta say one more thing. I'm sorry. We're we're also getting this version that she's this nice joyful lady when she's not. She is a mean spirited. She has been, she is insulting to her campaign staff for the turnover rate of among her vice president office was was sky high.
Chris Talgo:She's actually not a nice person. She's not joyful. She's not about good vibes. So that's a total BS argument as well. Sorry.
Donald Kendal:So the question is, which one of these versions of her is the real one? And if I had to put my money on it, I'm going with the radical one. And even if she were to come out and firsthand tell us that, no, no, no. Not for banning fracking, not for mandating electric vehicles, not for the green new deal anymore, all of this stuff, I still wouldn't believe her. She's the she's the radical, and if given the reigns of power and having the ability through congress and all of that, I'm sure she would, attempt to do some radical things.
Donald Kendal:But Danny, I know
Chris Talgo:you're the host, but I gotta ask a question to you. Do you think right now that Kamal Harris is gonna win? Yes or no?
Donald Kendal:I'm gonna go with a no. I'm gonna go with a real fat no.
Chris Talgo:Do you think right now Kamal Harris is gonna win? Yes or no? Me? Yes.
Jim Lakely:Can I phrase it differently?
Chris Talgo:This is a yes or no?
Jim Lakely:I don't think the regime will permit Donald Trump to return to the White House.
Chris Talgo:So you think Kamala's gonna win? Yeah. I'm I I think that she's
Jim Lakely:It doesn't mean Kamala wins.
Chris Talgo:Well
Jim Lakely:It means what I said.
Chris Talgo:Come January 21, 2025, who do you think is gonna be in the White House? Do you think it's gonna be Kamala or Trump?
Donald Kendal:Or none of the above? He's withholding comments. That's gonna do it for this episode of the
Chris Talgo:I think he's gonna be down
Donald Kendal:from guest. I agree with you, Chris. Thank you all for tuning into this episode. Tune in every week for a new episode of the show for those audio only listeners that are catching the show probably on a Friday or later. Leave a review for us on iTunes.
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Donald Kendal:They go into heartland.org/inthetank and, you know, donating directly to the show doesn't get taxed by YouTube at 30% or anything like that. Also, if you'd like, you can follow us on Twitter at in the tank pod. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for the show, feel free to email us at in the tank podcast atgmail.com. Jim Lakeley, where can the find people find you?
Jim Lakely:Atjlakeleyonx@heartlandinstonx, and alwaysvisitheartland.org.
Donald Kendal:Fantastic. Chris Talgo, what do you have to pitch today?
Chris Talgo:Find me at the 40th anniversary benefit dinner, September 13th, Chicago Hilton. Gotta be there.
Donald Kendal:Boom. Heartland.org. You'll find all the information right at the top of that website. Thank you all for tuning into this episode, and we will talk to you next week.
Kamala Harris:Turn that off.