Claim: “I am not a trained seal; I’m not going to memorize lines and spout them. I have to understand the logic and building blocks of every argument so I can present it clearly and defend it persuasively.”
Who said it: Kamala Harris, the inept career politician who failed upward into the office of vice president after a disastrous primary campaign, wrote this in her recently published memoir about her ill-fated attempt to defeat Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
Context: Harris was describing her efforts to prepare for the September 2024 debate with Trump. She took five days off from the campaign trail to “hunker down” in a luxury hotel and practice on an exact replica of the ABC News debate set. The comments also reflect Harris’s conception of herself as a deep thinker whose passion for diligent research enhances her ability to communicate clearly and intelligently in public settings.
“I’m not interested in doing jiujitsu with reporters, ducking questions or obfuscating. I want to be thoughtful and responsive in my answers, no matter what is asked,” Harris writes in a passage about her extensive preparation for her first televised interview on CNN, which took place nearly six weeks after Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Alas, the preparations didn’t help, and neither did the fact that Harris insisted on doing the interview with Tim Walz, her oafish running mate.
During the interview, Harris said her “values have not changed” while attempting to explain why she had disavowed so many of her past positions. The flustered candidate falsely claimed to have never supported a fracking ban, and gave a characteristically inarticulate response to a question about her support for the Green New Deal. “I have always believed, and I have worked on it, that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time,” Harris said.
In the book, Harris recounts a traumatic moment from her early days as a courtroom prosecutor that may help explain her remarkable inability to speak coherently in front of a camera. While presenting a case involving a series of maps she described as “elaborate,” Harris found herself repeatedly “confused about north and south and had to keep correcting myself in front of the jury.” The judge called her into his chambers and condemned her ineptitude, which may have scarred her for life. “I have been conditioned by my career to weigh my every word,” Harris writes.
Crucial context: “Conditioned” is a synonym for “trained.”
Expert Analysis: We’ve seen no evidence to suggest that Kamala Harris is a seal or other semiaquatic marine mammal capable of performing tricks, so let’s assume she was speaking metaphorically. Harris’s interactions with the media during her failed presidential campaign were remarkably consistent. She would memorize a bunch of talking points and attempt to spout them off, no matter what the question was. On numerous occasions, she would ramble nonsensically about her “middle-class” upbringing in response to questions about inflation. Harris would inevitably get flustered when the otherwise friendly journalist tried to prod her towards a more coherent response, and this would often end in disaster when Harris tried to come up with new words on the spot.
Based on her public statements, there’s no evidence to suggest that Harris has ever understood an argument well enough to “present it clearly and defend it persuasively.” In 2019, she struggled to explain why she had flip-flopped multiple times on the issue of abolishing private health insurance. In 2021, she was unusually befuddled when Lester Holt asked her why she hadn’t visited the southern border. In her book, 107 Days, Harris says she eventually became aware, towards the end of the campaign, that voters “wanted to know there was a separation” between her and Biden. Our informed judgment leads us to believe that she has no idea what’s going on or what she’s doing.
Harris did a series of interviews last month to promote her book, and frequently relied on memorized talking points that filled up space without conveying anything substantive. Here are a few examples that we found.
#WinWithBlackWomen: “We cannot let an election or an individual ever rob us of the light that we carry inside of us. We cannot let anyone dim our light. And let us continue like we did those 107 days—and we will always do—[to] see the light in each other and let that guide us through the kinds of moments of darkness that we’re experiencing right now.”
The View: “That light is inside people. It’s there and it cannot be diminished or extinguished by an election or an individual. We have to remember that. That light is inside us, and it’s inside each of us, and we have to see it in each other and let that guide us through this very dark time.”
Good Morning America: “These are troubling times, and I hope and I pray that when people read this book they will remember the light that they had that cannot be diminished by the outcome of one election or the existence of one individual. That light exists in all of us, and we have to see it in each other and let that propel us through these dark days.”
What they’re saying: Former Biden aides told the Daily Mail they often “watched in horror” when Harris did interviews and attempted to answer “questions that she had been prepared for in advance with pre-rehearsed lines but then flubbed nevertheless.”
Verdict: Harris is lying. Few politicians more closely resemble a “trained seal” who can recite memorized talking points but is woefully inept when it comes to thinking deeply and speaking intelligently about issues that matter.
We rate this claim 4 Flaming Clintons.
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