Wednesday’s CBS Mornings predictably had robust coverage of the vice presidential debate it hosted between Republican Senator JD Vance and Democratic Governor Tim Walz (MN), but it was often colored by the condescending, elitist, and partisan analysis by chief political analyst John Dickerson, who predicted “fuel is out there” in the form of desire for “violence” by Trump supporters after the election and thus suffer from an “irreconcilable problem.”
It started off on an unfortunate note with co-host Tony Dokoupil laying it on thick for him: “Turning now to our wisest of all wise heads of all things political our chief political analyst, John Dickerson....Our burbling fountain of all wise things. Please tell us. What were your takeaways last night?”
Similar to how he first reacted once the debate ended, Dickerson expressed almost disgust that Americans saw Vance as a calm, normal, personable individual and not the radical macho bro the liberal media have portrayed him as:
Well, it was a kind of — a — you know, basically everything that — that’s been reported so far, it was civil. It was — you know, and that’s notable mostly from JD Vance, because you look at who’s running at the top of the ticket...That isn’t to say that there wasn’t a lot of traditional stuff that irritates people about politics, but it was so much different than what we’ve heard from Donald Trump out on the trail.
Given Vance’s strong performance, Dickerson made sure to argue the debate didn’t matter.
Co-host and Kamala Harris donor Gayle King made sure January 6 came up by boasting it was “one of the most talked about moments of the night” and whining like the out-of-touch multimillionaire that she is that Vance would dare to “say that January 6 is in the past.”
Dickerson smugly claimed Vance was trying to have it both ways by “talking about how great things were in the Trump years” while ignoring how it ended.
He then argued Vance’s answers and the Trump campaign itself are not only going to incite violence, but spoke of them as threats to democracy (i.e. national security threats) (click “expand”):
DICKERSON: When you talk to national security experts who are worried about violence around the next election, they say the biggest thing fueling the possibility for violence around the next election is the lie that Donald Trump won the last one —
DOKOUPIL: Yes.
DICKERSON: — so that fuel is out there in real time now, and then when you look at the answers from Vance and Senator Cotton, democracy exists by common agreement. Everybody agrees that elections matter and that the votes should be counted and that the power given to the people who win the election then allows you to make laws, and everybody will agree to that. If that agreement doesn’t exist, you have violence. Well, that agreement only exists if everybody chooses to agree to it. So when you see Senator Vance and Senator Cotton making excuses, not saying easily, that Donald Trump lost, they are creating room for the lie to keep living.
Like ABC’s Jonathan Karl, Dickerson dismissed the idea other policy discussions matter the way January 6 should loom, saying “this is not like a debate over tax cuts” but rather “a fundamental idea of whether 81 million people should be disenfranchised because a guy didn’t like that he lost.”
“[T]he Republican leaders in the House and Senate at the time who said the lie from Donald Trump led to the violence. That’s real and alive right now. It’s not in the past,” he added to which Dokoupil said he too is “worrie[d]” about Trump voters turning violent.
Talk about a hatred for half the country.
Dickerson returned in the show’s new third hour, entitled CBS Mornings Plus. Co-host Adriana Diaz led off that chat with — of course — January 6.
“[H]ere is a pen, did the pen just drop? Yes. That's as easy as that question was. That is a question that you don’t have to shilly shally around it. Did Donald Trump lose? Yes, he did,” Dickerson began before reiterating his veiled prediction of Trump supporters turning violent.
He went onto argue Vance and Trump-supporting Republicans shouldn’t be allowed to hold power and thus be seen as worth supporting by anyone in polite society. He went as far as to argue Republicans possess an “irreconcilable problem” and lack of respect for the Constitution.
Dokoupil doubled down as well, saying America is at “a dangerous crossroads” (click “expand”):
DICKERSON: And someone that operates in that system that has been given power by the people, which is to say Senator JD Vance and all of his colleagues, they should all have an interest in making sure the system is not infected by the idea that entire elections can be stolen. And so, he should just as a member of the system or a person who takes an oath, he should say, Donald Trump lost and we’re going to get him again and we’re going to win this reason and here’s reasons A, B, C, and D that we should. You can do that.
DIAZ: But you couldn’t do that — could he do that[.]
(....)
DICKERSON: [Y]ou are asking somebody to protect the Constitution whose leaders in his party say broke the oath of that Constitution and that is the irreconcilable problem with the Trump campaign.
DOKOUPIL: It’s also a dangerous crossroads for the country to be at and I really wish we could find another way.
The other topic? Abortion, duh.
Diaz complained about Vance’s answers and implied he was disingenuous:
I thought it was interesting that JD Vance looked at the camera and talked about people not really trusting the party on that issue. He didn't really change really the policy but he changed the tone in talking about families last night. Did you pick up on that? You’re looking skeptical.
Dickerson also dismissed it, calling it word games and “chang[ing]” of “tone”, but refused to call for the GOP changing its policies to ensure the government stays out of “the way of their personal choices on reproductive rights” (which means being able to kill your children in the ninth month).
“[V]oters say don’t show me empathy on the back end. Show me empathy on the policies that are not going to affect my lives,” he opined.
Going back to the first hour, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison was treated to a number of softballs from King and featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers on “voter suppression”, the Springfield, Ohio hubbub, and whining about more black men moving towards Trump (click “expand”):
KING: It was a little wobbly in the beginning, though, Jaime, were you worried?
(....)
KING: [R]ecent polling shows that there’s a disconnect with many Black men. I actually know some of them that say they’re going to go for Trump. Is the party doing anything to reengage that part of the electorate? And are you worried about it?
(....)
KING: What about voter suppression? Many people are worried about that.
(....)
DUTHIERS: Jaime, let me just ask you. Vance was factchecked on the mistruths he was spreading about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Do you think the damage, though, has already been done with that type of rhetoric, and how do you in the last couple of weeks of this race combat that?
Rewinding to the beginning and, like the entirety of NBC’s Today coverage, there weren’t any fire-breathing flashes of liberalism in the traditional post-debate round-ups on CBS.
In the first “Eye Opener”, King said “[t]he vice presidential nominees strike a respectful tone in their debate while they sharply disagree on policy,” later saying she “like[d] civility.”
Duthiers set the table with the crisis under which the debate took place with the crisis in the Middle East and the deadly fallout from Hurricane Helene in across the south.
White House and campaign correspondent Ed O’Keefe was also muted.
Crazy, we know, but O’Keefe often let the soundbites from the candidates speak for themselves. For example, on the economy, O’Keefe only cued clips up by saying it “consistently ranks as a top concern for voters” and on “[t]he future of abortion services,” it’s “been a major focus for Democrats, but Republican JD Vance shared a personal connection to the issue.”
To see the relevant CBS transcript from October 2, click here.
