This week Kamala Harris sat for an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle and released an 82-page report on her economic proposals. Neither of these moves satisfied the Harris-needs-to-answer-questions chorus in the media, which routinely lets Trump get away with “answers” that consist mostly of insults, lies, and long rambles about sharks.
This week I decided to stop just complaining about mainstream coverage of this campaign and offer something constructive. My proposal is that if you think Harris needs to answer more questions, you should tell us what those questions are, rather than save them for some “hard-hitting interview” you imagine doing someday. Let Harris decide for herself how she wants to provide that information to voters.
I demonstrate that approach in this week’s featured post by listing questions I think Donald Trump still needs to answer — a topic the NYT et al generally ignore. I have done my best to ask questions I think voters might actually be curious about, and to frame my questions as fairly as possible. For example, here’s a question about Trump’s plan for mass deportations: “If we deport millions of workers, how will the US economy replace them? In particular, won’t deporting low-wage workers increase inflation?”
This topic — questions not yet answered by presidential candidates — is the one big exception to the NYT’s tendency to frame every issue in a both-sides way. Only Harris, not Trump, needs to answer more questions.
That article is just about done and should appear shortly. The weekly summary covers the hurricane, Mayor Adams’ indictment, Israel’s attack on Lebanon, Trump’s race to squeeze as much money as he can out of his sheep before the election, and a few other things, before closing with a collection of memorable lines the late Maggie Smith delivered as Downton Abbey’s dowager countess. That should be out around noon.
The Weekly Sift 