When Jimmy Kimmel eventually retires, maybe MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle could take his place. On Friday, Ruhle was not happy with young Republicans who are unpersuaded by Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris because they care more about economic issues than social one because she could not “remember the last time I heard Kamala Harris talk about anything like that.” Meanwhile, RiskReversal Media co-founder Dan Nathan unironically replied by hyping that Harris is supposedly “destroying” Donald Trump on abortion.
Ruhle was set up by NBC internet culture reporter Kalhan Rosenblatt, who recalled that she “spent a week talking to young Republicans who, after the Taylor Swift endorsement, I know we'll talk about that later, but they were telling me, ‘You know, she cares about social issues because of LGBTQ people, but us common folk, we can't afford food, we can't afford housing. It's a terrible economy.’”
At the same time, they view Trump as “a, like, home-based guy and they see her as, like, wanting to work on all these social issues, and they feel like we don't have the ability to work on social issues.”
Sure, Democrats and their media allies have been trying to make abortion the election’s top issue, and Republicans are just resisting their attempts to redefine gender, but Ruhle still portrayed Republicans as the culture war aggressors, “Can I counter that, too, Dan? Do you know who really talks about social issues and culture issues and LGBTQ issues the most? Republicans. Right, I don't actually see Democrats, I don't remember the last time I heard Kamala Harris talk about anything like that, but I hear JD Vance talk about it all the time.”
Harris's abortion debate fearmongering is not even a week old, but for Nathan, the young people Rosenblatt references are just aggrieved, “Right, and that's the politics of grievance. I'll just say one thing about the young males, they're really an unreliable-- just go back and look at the history of a voting bloc, if you will, right? And so, they like to actually, kind of, get involved in these culture wars a little bit.”
If promoting abortion is the media’s favorite pastime, hyping the wisdom and power of young voters is a close second. However, conservative young voters, apparently, don’t count as Nathan continued, “I don't know how, if you are a young person and you're watching two nights of the DNC, when they are up in Milwaukee, and then when she spoke, I think it was on the Thursday night, and not really create some sort of separation between Joe Biden and what a lot of folks pink about as the last three-and-a-half years and the stewardship that he had. She's done a great job of tacking back towards the center, right?”
As he typed Harris’s alleged move to the center, Nathan undermined not only himself, but Ruhle’s earlier assessment as he praised her left-wing abortion stance, “Now she has to tell us, what is her plan on immigration, what is your plan for the economy? She's destroying him right now on female reproductive rights.”
An additional layer of irony is that Trump's federalist abortion stance is more in the center than Harris's, but MSNBC has a narrative to sell.
Here is a transcript for the September 13 show:
MSNBC The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle
9/13/2024
11:15 PM ET
KALHAN ROSENBLATT: And I say also, I spent a week talking to young Republicans who, after the Taylor Swift endorsement, I know we'll talk about that later, but they were telling me, "You know, she cares about social issues because of LGBTQ people, but us common folk, we can't afford food, we can't afford housing. It's a terrible economy." And these are young people who I don't know if they've had to deal with these issues, with the full brunt of these issues, but they see him as a, like, home-based guy and they see her as, like, wanting to work on all these social issues, and they feel like we don't have the ability to work on social issues.
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Can I counter that, too, Dan?
DAN NATHAN: Sure.
RUHLE: Do you know who really talks about social issues and culture issues and LGBTQ issues the most? Republicans. Right, I don't actually see Democrats, I don't remember the last time I heard Kamala Harris talk about anything like that, but I hear JD Vance talk about it all the time.
NATHAN: Right, and that's the politics of grievance. I'll just say one thing about the young males, they're really an unreliable-- just go back and look at the history of a voting bloc, if you will, right? And so, they like to actually, kind of, get involved in these culture wars a little bit, but I don't know how, if you are a young person and you're watching two nights of the DNC, when they are up in Milwaukee, and then when she spoke, I think it was on the Thursday night, and not really create some sort of separation between Joe Biden and what a lot of folks pink about as the last three-and-a-half years and the stewardship that he had. She's done a great job of tacking back towards the center, right?
Now, she has to articulate why she's not really progressive. Because it's interesting that Biden had to tack to a more progressive stance and now she has the opportunity. I just think she's very obviously -- she's articulate. Now she has to tell us, what is her plan on immigration, what is your plan for the economy? She's destroying him right now on female reproductive rights.
