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Funding for To the Contrary provided by Coming up on To the Contrary The campaign for president is roaring ahead following an exuberant Democratic convention.

So, do we know more about what VP Kamala Harris will do if she wins the White House?

Then, with most political analysts saying this will be a very close election.

What do the candidates need to do to win?

(MUSIC) Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbe' Welcome to To the Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives This week Who is Kamala Harris?

Do we know more about her now that the very energetic and hopeful Democratic convention is in the rearview mirror?

If she indeed becomes the first black female president of the United States, how will she govern?

And what can we expect from a Harris -Walz agenda?

That's what we will ask our panel today.

Joining us, Deborah Carnahan, former judge and federal prosecutor, Carrie Sheffield of the Independent Women's Forum, National Political Reporter Jessica Washington and Tiana Lowe Doescher, commentary for The Washington Examiner.

So, Tiana, let's start with you.

What did you learn about Kamala Harris and how she might govern from the convention?

Well, she's doubling and tripling down on the things that made Joe Biden have to leave the race in the first place.

Let's be real here.

His age in his senility was really just the straw that broke the camel's back.

The reason why his polling was quite bad relative to Trump, who was twice impeached even before that disastrous debate implosion is because of things like Bidenomics prices that have increased nearly 20% on average since Biden and Harris took office.

Officially, now we know that there is.

So Biden-nomics when it was in fact the fed not, lowering interest rates.

that caused a lot of the inflation.

Bonnie the fed that's okay.

That's not how monetary policy works.

It's not that the fed didn't lower interest rates.

It's that they waited too long to increase them.

So we wanted higher interest rates earlier.

And they're probably going to cut too early.

And we're probably going to have the same rebound inflation that we saw in the early 70s.

And Kamala Harris wants to double down on this.

Look she wants to enact Nixonian style price controls, which didn't work then.

They didn't work in the USSR.

We just had the BLS downgrade the number of jobs created under Biden and Harris by nearly 1 million.

So, okay, you know, they have a lot of joy.

They have a lot of vibes, but they don't have a lot of real plans.

Well, I don't think that I necessarily agree with this is what Joe Biden's, issues were.

And it was a problem.

And the, you know, the age question and the debate was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I think that people will be analyzing this race and what happened with the Democrats.

And it certainly is historic, what we've just lived through in the last four weeks.

and certainly, the economic indicators are looking better and better all the time.

and now what?

Inflation's below 3%.

so I think there's a lot out there that, Democrats have a lot to be joyful about.

with the way that the economy is, turning around and.

Is she, Is she as a candidate?

Let me ask you, is she is the candidate able to overcome what we know have been launched, long standing prejudices in this country against women leaders and against people of color?

Yeah, that is a great question.

and I think it remains to be seen.

Right now, it appears that she is.

And it's, it's kind of an unexplained phenomenon.

I mean, I think everybody's in here guessing, like, where is this coming from?

I think one of the things is, her youth compared to Joe Biden or Donald Trump, both who were pretty up there in age.

Both of them.

I think that's invigorating a lot of young voters and the polls are showing that, I know with my own family, with my own sons, they're in their 30s, their friends.

They're a lot more fired up now.

Yeah.

I mean, I thought the Democrats have put on a very entertaining show, but I agree with Tiana that it's really light on substance.

And when we're talking about the economy, that revised jobs report is really damning, because the most important factor to note is that the revisions were in the private sector downward, and there were revisions upward for government jobs.

That means the jobs.

I put that in air quotes.

They're not real jobs.

These are jobs that are put on the back of taxpayers.

We're approaching $35 trillion in debt.

These are fake jobs.

These are not real jobs.

These are jobs that all of us on the show are going to be paying for, and our children and our grandchildren.

These are not real jobs.

And so the economy is being propped up by.... OK but let's I want to keep this really on Kamala Harris.

Jessica, how do you think she did?

Yeah.

I mean, I think this convention has been exciting.

I think people are excited about it.

I think everyone here, is right that we're all waiting to hear about policy and and really kind of understand what they're going to do.

I would argue both sides.

Both Harris and Trump could.

definitely use to, you know, to talk more about policy.

And I think particularly Trump is generally someone who's pretty light, outside of kind of project 2025, which is you know, I know he's disowned it and there's some disagreement about whether or not that's connected to his campaign and whether or not... -It's not policies.

He's (laughter) Going through.

I think there's been a lot of reporting that that indicates kind of there's connections, whether or not it's explicitly going to be what he enacts or not.

I think that's something we'll have to wait and see.

But there are certainly a lot of reporting on close connection between the two groups.

the one only thing I would add is, as someone whose grandparents worked in the federal government, there's some of the few jobs that black Americans could get.

I would argue that federal jobs are real jobs.

and so let's let's talk about well, first allow me to say one of my favorite, if not my favorite quote, of the convention came from, Michelle Obama, who was talking about what Trump said about black jobs.

And she said, and I think he might be running for one of those black jobs, making a joke about the fact that he he could be beaten by a black woman.

So, what other points did you take from some of the speeches?

each one of you just jump in and I'll make sure everybody gets equal time.

Well, if I can just respond to what Jessica said, though, because when I say it's not a real job, I'm talking about real wealth creation.

That's what, Margaret Thatcher would say.

Right but what.

But value.

Now, Carrie , let (inaudible) me jump in, because I actually paid a lot of attention.

tor it.

Carrie, let me jump in.

Paid a lot of attention of which presidents have raised, the deficit the most.

And the fact is that it's risen for.

The last time there there was a zero balance was under Bill Clinton.

And the raising of federal expenditures started under Bush and kept growing and growing.

I think Obama cut it back a little bit, actually, but never Obama.

Obama did not cut it back the debt.

It's that he blew out the deficit in his first year in office and then was able to reduce the deficit.

OK, but Donald Trump expanded it by trillions of dollars.

But Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have spent more money.

Yeah.

You're right.

Even if you include Covid spending, even if you include Covid spending, which I think we all recognize was way too much money.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have still spent $1 trillion more than Donald Trump across four years, and their presidency isn't even over yet.

Remember Joe Biden?

And, you know, I don't know if that's completely accurate, but I will say this when you're going to talk about spending.

You've got.

That's Treasury, you've Got the infrastructure bill that's creating jobs, that's finally addressing what we need to address in this country, our infrastructure, and is being hailed and probably will be looked back at like FDR legislation in the 30s.

Debra, Debra, Debra, 78% of all tax revenue that is collected is being spent on entitlements and just paying down the interest on our federal debt.

Net interest payments on the national debt is up 42% just from last year.

I don't think that that the real problem is our bridges.

I think it's the fact that our US dollars.

I'm not talking.

Okay.

Now your thoughts, Carrie.

Yeah.

Well, it just I guess going back to the convention.

So one thing I noted, you mentioned Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton repeatedly mispronounced Kamala Harris's name and just calling out the double standard of when a Democrat does that versus when a Republican does it.

It's a racist microaggression.

But when Bill Clinton does that, it's just an old man being funny or whatever.

I will also say on Tim Walz's speech, he was trying to be Mr. All American Apple Pie.

He ignored some very key policy failures under his watch.

I mean, this is a guy who shut down his state.

He basically criminalized, so many behaviors under Covid, and then he has the audacity to say that he cares about freedom.

And this is also a guy who who embraces sanctuary cities while illegal immigrants are coming and committing crimes.

and then also and taking away jobs when Donald Trump says black jobs.

He is talking about the fact that under Barack Obama's DOJ, they actually looked at this illegal immigration has a negative, disproportionate impact on African-American high school dropouts when it comes to employment.

That's what Donald Trump was talking about.

All right, Jessica, what impression did you walk away with?

Yeah, I think the point of conventions is to ramp up your base and get them excited to go out and vote for you.

And I think if that's the goal of conventions, and I think Democrats have succeeded in that, I think it was excited and I think it has energized the base.

And so I think from those metrics alone, yeah, I think this was a credible convention for them.

What did you think about little John's, appearance early on in the convention?

James Carville, Bill Clinton's campaign manager, said that the use of people such by the Harris campaign, such as Beyonce, such as Lil John, might work great on both coasts, but won't sell so well in middle America.

Do you agree?

I mean, I'm.

You know, I can't speak for, you know, everyone across all the coasts of America.

but I do think he's an energizing figure.

I think most millennials in particular have pretty fond memories of Little John, from growing up and that kind of stuff.

So, yeah, I don't I would argue it probably won't really turn anyone off from Harris.

And I think the only thing you can do is kind of get people work that I think the percentage of people who would have such an issue with Little John being on the stage that they wouldn't vote or turnout seems pretty minuscule.

all right.

And one thing I want to get to is, Harris's political donations.

They have broken all kinds of records.

60% of them came from women.

Why is this happening?

I think it's because she's a woman.

Is a huge impetus for people to want to give number one.

I also think that women are very energized by the overturning of Roe v Wade and the Dobbs decision.

And I know that Republicans and including, former President Trump keep saying I don't think abortion's an issue.

And I heard the former president say everybody in the country wanted this to happen.

Everybody wanted me to do this, and I did it.

Well, no, everybody in the country didn't.

And the polling shows differently.

And so I think that's another reason, that women are contributing in droves the way that they are.

Tiana, do you what do you think about what's driving donations?

Does it have anything to do with project 2025, by the Heritage Foundation, which Trump has distanced himself from?

But the fact is, it was written by staffers of his and handpicked people he helped get to the to the Heritage Foundation.

Lots of people on both sides of the aisle will migrate from one administration to a think tank, and that does not make them part of the campaign.

The Trump campaign is very clear.

They completely disavow project 2025.

I think at this point, the Heritage Foundation owes not just Trump, but also its donors, an apology for false advertising that Borderline is in violation of IRS code for 501 C 3s.

I think a lot of it is.

Kamala Harris has always been a fantastic campaigner and she's always been great with donations.

It's part of the reason why she, as sort of an outsider, was able to compete with someone like a Gavin Newsom that had the Gettys bankrolling him, right.

The issue is that she's a paper tiger.

You have a candidate who's now been a candidate for over a month, who has not sat down for a single interview.

Well, just that's not.

That's not exactly correct.

She did start answering towards the end of the convention.

She started taking reporters questions as she walked in and out and gave lengthy answers.

Okay, so we've had so so Bonnie, have we had ten minutes of questions in one month of her being a presidential candidate who has not received a single primary vote in either 2020 or 2024?

I would hope that the democracy dies in darkness crowd would be a little bit concerned about this fact.

So I'm not sure great at the speech, but she needs to have her questions.

Jessica.

Your thoughts?

yeah.

I mean, my thoughts on whether or not Harris should sit down for an interview.

I mean, I'm a journalist.

I think that all the candidates should sit down for an interview.

I would, you know, I think most reporters would love to sit down with her and actually get a chance to, to have a one on one interview.

Have that time.

So, I see, you know, no reason not to.

yeah.

In terms of the, the fundraising numbers, I definitely think Dobbs has something to do with it.

And that decision, and we saw that in the midterms, is clearly an animating political issue, particularly for women.

it's particularly.

Women of color and women of color.

And women of color for sure, because obviously abortion is an issue that disproportionately impacts women of color.

So this is an issue that's incredibly motivating for women in general, women in color in particular, and young women in particular, for whom this issue, directly impacts as well.

So I think it's not surprising to me that this is really motivated, this group, and that they're excited to see a woman, you know, potentially our first female president.

I think that's exciting for a lot of people.

And I also think the issues are really animating for.

People as well.

Deborah Carnahan, your thoughts on well.

You know, I'm sure she will sit down and do a press conference.

She's also taking questions from reporters, coming in and off of Air Force Two.

And of course, that's not good enough either.

I think she's done remarkably well.

I think it's amazing what's going on in the last four weeks.

More amazing than I thought could possibly happen, quite frankly.

But why do you think why do you think her campaign is obviously made the decision not to let her do the interviews?

So far, they afraid she wouldn't.

I don't think they're what.

I think.

When she says that there's only so many hours in the day, there's redoing the convention that they had to do.

There's fundraising, there's picking the vice president, there's going out and campaigning.

And that you have to do in the swing states.

So there's a lot there, and it's working well for her.

So I think what's working well, they've decided to stay with and yes, reporters want to have more questions always.

And including this reporter, including this reporter who has a request in for an interview.

Okay.

But anyway, from the celebration to the tough road ahead.

The race for president, by all accounts, will be tight, especially in the important battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and North Carolina.

Voters in more than a dozen states begin early voting next month, nearly two months before election Day, November 5th.

And there's a lot of work to be done even before the first vote is cast.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will go head to head in a debate in September.

There are undoubtedly other hurdles and obstacles.

If Kamala Harris is to make history as the country's first female president.

Tiana, how do you think she would do in a debate against Donald Trump?

So on the one hand, you know, Trump is older.

Trump is not incredibly disciplined all the time.

If we get the Trump that we got before and after the shooting, that's a different story.

If he continues to listen to his advisers and focus on Biden-nomics the border, crime, the kitchen table issues that will win the election.

If you make your own personal grievances.

Let me just jump in here for a second and ask, you mean he shouldn't be talking about the fact that he thinks he's better looking than Kamala Harris?

That was a compliment he was pointing out.

I mean, I don't think I regardless of partizanship, I don't think anyone here thinks that Kamala Harris isn't very good looking.

Right?

But so you.

No that didn't come across as a compliment at all.

It came across as a guy so obsessed with himself that he can't see beyond that to talk about political issues.

If there's a person that recognizes a beautiful woman when he sees one, I think it's Donald Trump.

Gross I think focusing on the kitchen table issues will make it I think focusing on the kitchen table issues will make it much harder.

However, with Harris again, she is a paper tiger recalled that in her debate against Mike Pence, she used the opportunity of talking about Covid and the vaccines to say I would not take a Trump vaccine, and that massively set back the movement to get people to take these lifesaving vaccines that were created under the tutelage of the Trump administration.

So with her, if she can, if she can stick to defending the Biden-nomics record, which will be incredibly difficult, and do it without breaking out into a cackle or coconut trees or, you know, saying, I've never been to Europe either.

We'll see.

I just don't see much evidence that she's an incredibly strong debater, and there's only one person on that stage that's ended someone else's career during a debate, and that's Trump.

Jessica, what do you see as her biggest obstacles to success?

in the debate, I mean, from from my perspective, just having seen the two of them speak in speeches, having seen what Harris did, particularly as a Senator, I think she was incredibly strong when she was cross-examining people.

She's an attorney.

I mean, I think the idea that Trump is going to wipe the floor with her and be seems somewhat farfetched.

just based on looking at him speak, looking at her speak.

And then particularly with her Senate record, what we saw in the Senate, what we also saw with her on the debate stage.

so I think for Kamala Harris, the problem is going to be the expectations are going to be high.

the expectation is going to be that she's going to be so much better than Trump on the debate stage.

And so if she doesn't clear that expectation, particularly with Biden, I think everyone can agree poor performance.

If she has a clear those expectations, I think she's in danger.

so I think for her that's a huge obstacle.

Well, it's been interesting to hear that Tulsi Gabbard reportedly has been helping Trump with debate prep, and the reason why is because she eviscerated Kamala Harris on the debate stage when it came to her prosecutorial record.

Kamala Harris is a total hypocrite.

she while she was, you know, D.A.

in San Francisco, crime went down in California, but not in San Francisco.

And then when she was attorney general, you also had a violent right, an extreme rise in violent crime.

While she was attorney general of California.

So she's going to have to answer for that.

The mood of the country, 73% of Americans say that America is on the wrong track.

That is a shockingly high number, and it is not good for anyone who's holding the incumbency of the White House.

And so as... How recent was that poll that you just sited?

August.

It's a it's a monthly tracking poll.

So and it's been going higher since Biden took office.

And I will say another point that Trump could hit her on is this question of donations.

Because when you look at corporate donations, Kamala Harris is winning among fortune 500 company employees.

And that's because the elites love her.

As Tiana mentioned, Kamala Harris has won zero actual delegate.

And that's why I think the variable here also is RFK.

RFK reportedly is going to step down and I think ... And he's taking he's polling at about 5% nationally, down from originally 12% nationally.

Yeah.

And reportedly he's going to endorse Trump.

And I think that could be pivotal in some swing states.

And that's something that Trump could hit Kamala on.

Why is your party who says you care about democracy completely throwing democracy down the drain here?

One issue that's been talked about a lot this week in the media is what happens if she actually wins, the, Electoral College vote.

But but Trump has worked over these last two years to set it up.

So that, the electors will in, in battleground states at least, are majority Republican and they will vote and people who will vote against certification.

What happens then is that not her biggest obstacle to this, to victory or no?

Your thoughts Carrie.

Well, I know, I know that Trump was asked this question, I believe, by, Caitlin Huey Burns at CBS.

Will you accept the results?

And he said, yes, I would, even if I lost.

He did say that.

So, I, you know, January 6th was a horrible day.

I think Trump should have been far more vocal and immediate and pushing back against what was happening.

but does he claim legal culpability for what happened?

No he doesn't.

And he did say that they should march peacefully over there.

So I pray to God we don't have a repeat of that.

I think any sane, rational American would feel that way as well.

I think that the the the finally, the Trump campaign is pushing for early voting.

I've been glad to see that that's something that Republicans have been asleep at the wheel.

Do you think Debra Carnahan, the Democrats have prepared well enough for this, if in fact, it comes to pass?

I'm not sure that, we are, quite frankly, and there's more strategies come out.

And just like what recently happened in Georgia and you had, some of the new electors in the electoral board saying, no, we unless our candidate wins, no, we won't accept, the results.

I mean, that's pretty stark.

Unless our candidate wins.

No, because what they're basically saying is it's not a true election unless our person wins, which is not the way the system works.

I'm not sure that the, recently elected, Bill, I just had elected enacted bill from Congress that Joe Biden signed, back in 2023.

If there's enough safeguards there to stop another January 6th from happening and, ending up in violence and the day of the certification and people calling for the vice president to be hanged.

I'm not sure that we've done enough yet, but time will tell.

And at least there's some guardrails up there to help try and solve the dispute before resulting in violence against the Capitol and the members of the Congress.

Last word, Jessica Washington, your thoughts on what might happen if, if Trump's apparent plan to, deny certification to states, battleground states that he doesn't win, what do you think Democrats will do?

What will be the reaction?

Yeah.

I mean, I think Democrats and I don't have inside knowledge into this, but I would hope that they would be prepared for this.

I would hope that they would know that this is, a possibility, I think particularly after January 6th, I would hope that everyone would be, very focused on protecting our democracy.

so, yeah, that would be my my assumption would be that Democrats are, you know, aware of this as a concern and would be doing something about it.

Although, again, I don't have any information into how they prepared.

Thank you all for wonderful input and your enlightenment.

That's it for this edition.

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