Monday Campaign Notes

Back in 1976 when the hapless President Gerald Ford attempted to bite through a tamale in Texas without removing the husk, it made the front page of the New York Times and other papers as yet another example of what a hopeless buffoon he was (as though Chevy Chase’s mockery on Saturday Night Live wasn’t enough).

Well get a load of this story:

Harris botched interview with Muslim influencer by celebrating ‘bacon’ as ‘a spice’

Vice President Kamala Harris is getting roasted for refusing to talk about the Mideast war with a Muslim influencer — and instead spending her time trying to convince him that bacon is “a spice.’’

The Democratic presidential candidate, 60, chewed the fat last summer with Kareem Rahma, host of the popular TikTok and Instagram show “Subway Takes,” although the interview never aired, the New York Times reported Monday.

The New York Times buries the key details far down at the end of an unusually long background story likely in an attempt to downplay it:

Rahma said he had been told that the vice president would be taking a stand against removing one’s shoes on airplanes. When they sat down, however, Harris had surprised him with a different take: “Bacon is a spice.” (Two senior campaign officials said this topic had been raised in advance. Rahma and his manager dispute this.)

Rahma, who doesn’t eat pork for religious reasons, was taken aback. “I don’t know,” he says, in an unpublished video recording of the interview, his voice rising to an unusually high pitch. Harris elaborates that bits of cooked bacon can be used to enhance a meal like any other seasoning. “Think about it, it’s pure flavor,” she says.

Rahma asks Harris if he can use beef or turkey and what kinds of dishes would benefit from bacon. He then pauses the interview and tells her that he doesn’t eat it. He asks if they can do the airplanes take instead. But, on the advice of a staffer, Harris decides to declare her love of anchovies on pizza — an alternative the campaign had floated earlier in an email. Rahma wraps the discussion one minute later.

Chaser:

“I’ll take ‘Things That Never Happened’ for $1,000, Alex.”

Jussie Smollett, call your lawyer: someone is ripping off your act.

The great “Titania McGrath” on why “If Donald Trump Wins, It’s Over.”

The imminent US election has been a constant source of anxiety for me. The prospect of a literal fascist returning to the White House has triggered my self-diagnosed PTSD. I haven’t been this distressed since my niece spat out the puberty blockers I smuggled into her rusks.

Donald Trump has consistently sown division and hatred. In this election campaign there have been three assassination attempts against Trump, thereby proving irrefutably that he is guilty of inciting violence.

If Trump continues to speak in public, no doubt more innocent people will be goaded into attempting to shoot him, thereby putting themselves in danger of being killed by the security services. This is reckless behaviour.

Trump’s connections to fascism are easily proven. For instance, his second wife was Marla Maples, who was born in the town of Cohutta in Georgia. Cohutta is an anagram of “Taco Hut”, which is a conflation of Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. These are both examples of popular restaurants. It is in restaurants that one often finds sausages. The country most associated with sausages is Germany. And Germany was the home of the Third Reich.

Read the whole thing.

It’s as though The Atlantic seriously thinks the Republican Party should simply dissolve itself and let Harris be anointed president by acclamation, because identity and “historic first” or something.

Exit question:

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