As much as the broadcast networks would have liked to, they couldn’t spend all week talking about Barack and Michelle Obama during their coverage of the virtual 2020 DNC. That said, they were able to muster fawning praise Wednesday night for vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s “soaring speech,” ensuring Americans “saw [Harris and Joe Biden] as human beings.”
Like they did with former President Obama, ABC set expectations high in the build-up to her speech. Senior congressional correspondent Mary Bruce assumed women were a political monolith, boasting that her speech would be “a huge moment of significance for women, for women of color, and to especially for young girls.”
Bruce continued to provide spin that would have Harris’s own staff jealous, warning that Harris will say that America “feels distant with President Trump and Kamala Harris will be blunt in arguing the country is at a key inflection point, and she will say that Joe Biden is the leader who can bring back the country that made her story possible.”
ABC News Live host Linsey Davis framed Harris as someone who, in college, “worked at McDonald's on the fries and the ice cream and somebody who has said that she eats no for breakfast.”
Chances are we won’t see such praise from either reporter next week for the RNC about Vice President Mike Pence.
Throwing objectivity out the window, Nightline co-host Byron Pitts previewed Harris’s acceptance speech by harkening back to 2008:
I remember the night that [Barack Obama] accepted the nomination from the party, what that said to my mother, a black woman. I think now this historic night, his presence, what it says about his tenure, but also what it potentially says about Kamala Harris and what it says about America.
And after she spoke, chief anchor George Stephanopoulos and World News Tonight anchor David Muir did their best (click “expand,” emphasis mine):
STEPHANOPOULOS: Kamala Harris, the pageantry may be missing, but make no mistake, that was a moment of history there, the first woman of color to accept a nomination for president or vice president on a national ticket. She spoke personally — there's some applause right there, lighting her up — she talked about her four women in the Civil Rights Movement, women like Betty Lou Hayman, Shirley Chishom, she spoke personally about her mom, an immigrant from India. She also spoke very plainly, “I know a predator when I see one.” “There is no vaccine for racism.” She talked about structural racism. I don’t think we’ve heard that in a convention speech before, talking about the inequities fight — hitting minority communities all across the country during this COVID crisis, but she's all smiles now, as she prepares to meet her family. And her running mate, Joe Biden, right there. A socially distanced hug. David Muir, it really — you get the feeling here after seeing the speech, again, how different everything is this year.
MUIR: Yeah even with the smiles and — and the track they're playing now with the applause, you do feel the heaviness of this moment in America, this pandemic we're living through. 170,000 lives. The families now coming out onto the stage.
Similarly, CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell was ready to react and called the speech “incredibly significant” “history” and gave young people “hope” in messaging that they have “the power to affect this election.”
CBS News contributor and former Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas offered perhaps the single biggest pro-Harris reaction on network news:
You know, I think in the last three days we realized and today especially, we heard about Trump's flaws, we heard about Joe Biden attributes but today I think we understood who Kamala Harris is as a human. I think she humanized herself and she humanized Joe Biden and I think what people get out of this also is they can really work together as a team and that, to them, family is first, so they are very relatable. Today, and maybe they didn't see them as politicians, maybe today they just saw them as human beings.
And on NBC, Today co-host Savannah Guthrie remarked that, even though Harris spoke in an empty convention center, there was otherwise “[e]verything that a convention has,” including “a soaring speech.”
Andrea Mitchell closed out the analysis on NBC and she used the opportunity to call Wednesday’s nightcaps in Obama and Harris “extraordinary” in which, concerning Harris, she “defin[ed] herself, saying how she was raised to be a strong black woman and that Donald Trump is costing lives and livelihoods.”
As one would notice with the above quotes, there was no such fact-checking. And the answer was simple: They all agree with every word of what she said.
The liberal media’s latest Obamagasam was brought to you by advertisers such as Claritin (on CBS), Disney (on ABC and NBC), and Progressive (on NBC). Follow the links to the MRC’s Conservative Fight Back page.
To see the relevant transcripts from August 19, click “expand.”
ABC’s The Democratic National Convention -- Your Voice/Your Vote 2020
August 19, 2020
10:02 p.m. EasternGEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: This is her night.
MARY BRUCE: George, Kamala Harris is now moments away from making history. This is a huge moment of significance for women, for women of color, and to especially for young girls across this country. Kamala Harris tonight will speak about the country that made her story possible. Her American dream. A country where the daughter of immigrants can go on to become the first black woman, the first Asian-American to be nominated to be vice president. But she will say that that country feels distant with President Trump and Kamala Harris will be blunt in arguing the country is at a key inflection point, and she will say that Joe Biden is the leader who can bring back the country that made her story possible.
(....)
10:03 p.m. Eastern
LINSEY DAVIS: And as much as the night is historic, and how the Biden/Harris ticket will tackle these crises of immigration, gun control, health care in this country, I think that it’s also, you know, there was awful lot of pressure on Biden to pick a black woman as his running mate. And now we’re going to get a chance to get a sense more of who she is. This is someone who, as a student, worked at McDonald's on the fries and the ice cream and somebody who has said that she eats no for breakfast. She says that you have to tell her at least five times before she even hears it and I think that that’s part of what’s made her, she has said, such a history-maker, having multiple positions where she was the first woman of color.
(....)
10:26 p.m. Eastern
BYRON PITTS: And, George, I'm also mindful, though, in thinking about tonight, I remember the night that he accepted the nomination from the party, what that said to my mother, a black woman. I think now this historic night, his presence, what it says about his tenure, but also what it potentially says about Kamala Harris and what it says about America.
(....)
11:10 p.m. Eastern
STEPHANOPOULOS: Kamala Harris, the pageantry may be missing, but make no mistake, that was a moment of history there, the first woman of color to accept a nomination for president or vice president on a national ticket. She spoke personally — there's some applause right there, lighting her up — she talked about her four women in the Civil Rights Movement, women like Betty Lou Hayman, Shirley Chishom, she spoke personally about her mom, an immigrant from India. She also spoke very plainly, “I know a predator when I see one.” “There is no vaccine for racism.” She talked about structural racism. I don’t think we’ve heard that in a convention speech before, talking about the inequities fight — hitting minority communities all across the country during this COVID crisis, but she's all smiles now, as she prepares to meet her family. And her running mate, Joe Biden, right there. A socially distanced hug. David Muir, it really — you get the feeling here after seeing the speech, again, how different everything is this year.
DAVID MUIR: Yeah even with the smiles and — and the track they're playing now with the applause, you do feel the heaviness of this moment in America, this pandemic we're living through. 170,000 lives. The families now coming out onto the stage.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah. Doug Emhoff, the man she met on a blind date setup by her best friend. Of course, Dr. Jill Biden, whom America saw last night as well. He's an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles, business lawyer, he’s now taking a leave from his law firm to avoid any conflicts of interest. Dr. Jill Biden, we said last night, did keep her job while Joe Biden was vice president as an educator. And of course, this is all setting the stage for Joe Biden's big speech tomorrow night, where he will accept the democratic nomination for president of the United States.
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CBS News: 2020 America Decides: Democratic Convention
August 19, 2020
11:10 p.m. EasternO’DONNELL: And there it is. History made tonight as Kamala Harris, the prosecutor-turned-attorney general-turned United States senator now is the first woman of color ever to be on a presidential ticket of the United States. Paying tribute to the women of the past as well as her mother, who she said whose shoulders she stands on and taught her that service to others gives life purpose and meaning. A mother immigrated from India to be a cancer researcher, her father a Jamaican professor of economics and now, Joe Biden there to congratulate the woman he has chosen to run on the ticket with him and to try to become the 46th President of the United States. Jamal, there are no balloons dropping, this is a socially distanced but nevertheless, incredibly significant.
SIMMONS: This is significant. I’ve got, you know, my phone’s blowing up, with people excited about AKA’s who are excited about this — that sorority — my wife is a Howard grad and the daughter of Jamican immigrants, is in tears on my phone, so she’s speaking, Kamala Harris, for a lot of people around the country who see in her rise something that is bigger than just her particular self and including Barack Obama who seemed to get a little choked up when he was talking because we talk about the civil war as kind of the second founding of the country. The civil rights movement as a third founding and so the question for a lot of people is was that new foundation crumbling after Donald Trump got elected and the hope that people have in her today and in Joe Biden in this election is that perhaps America can reclaim that progress in bringing everybody to participate and not excluding people.
O’DONNELL: Kamala joined on stage by her husband Doug who she points out she met on a blind date set up by a best friend, an attorney in his own right, and Maria Elena, I mean, she really tried to knit her own her own personal story, as we talked about, with the future and hope but also that message that young people, the next generation, has the power to affect this election.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS: And she’s an example of that. You know, I think in the last three days we realized and today especially, we heard about Trump's flaws, we heard about Joe Biden attributes but today I think we understood who Kamala Harris is as a human. I think she humanized herself and she humanized Joe Biden and I think what people get out of this also is they can really work together as a team and that, to them, family is first, so they are very relatable. Today, and maybe they didn't see them as politicians, maybe today they just saw them as human beings.
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NBC Democratic National Convention
August 19, 2020
11:10 p.m. EasternSAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Kamala Harris at the Chase Convention Center in Wilmington, Delaware. And in an empty convention hall. Everything that a convention has, a soaring speech, a nominee but not the people. Here she is introducing herself to America with her speech, first as an official vice presidential nominee and you see some of the folks —
LESTER HOLT: Zoom crowd.
GUTRHIE: — watching on Zoom. This is very, very 2020 as she says thank you to the folks who were watching at home.
HOLT: She guided through a really long period of introducing herself which many believe was kind of the goal tonight. We’ve known her as the presidential candidate. We've seen her in some of those more contentious hearings on Capitol Hill but this was her moment to come out and really tell America who she was. We learned a lot about her life story, where her values came from, her family, and there's Joe Biden.
GUTHRIE: Another convention tradition. The nominee, the candidate comes out. They're socially distanced, though. No hugs, no handshakes, but there he is and they're waving to whoever is assembled in this convention hall and they’re saying hello to the folks on Zoom. I want to bring in Valerie Jarrett who served eight years in the Obama administration who's been listening in with us tonight. Valerie, we keep mentioning, we can't say it enough, it's a convention like no other, but not just because it’s happening in a pandemic. There's her husband, Doug Emhoff, and Dr. Jill Biden. Not just because it’s in a pandemic but also because this is a candidate who makes history, the first black woman on a major party ticket, Valerie.
VALERIE JARRETT: Well, that's right and she said the American promise is a promise worth fighting for and her life, Savannah, has been living out that promise. The hard work, her grit, her resilience [SKYPE CUTS] her story, the daughter of immigrants, is the American story and she just knocked it out of the ballpark tonight. Wow, what a night.
(....)
11:15 p.m. Eastern
HOLT: Andrea, that last half hour was quite fascinating.
ANDREA MITCHELL: It was extraordinary. Kamala Harris defining herself, saying how she was raised to be a strong black woman and that Donald Trump is costing lives and livelihoods and the unprecedented attack by Barack Obama on his predecessor is something he had resisted doing until John Lewis’s funeral but he really came out tonight against Donald Trump. Pretty amazing, but he said democracy is at stake.
HOLT: Yeah, Andrea, thanks.
