Fox News Insists That Joe Biden Didn’t Really Pick Kamala Harris

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It took Fox News no more than an hour after Joe Biden selected Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate to start dabbling in wild speculation and conspiracy theories about the hidden, nefarious reasons behind the pick. 
In the day after the ex-veep and presumptive Democratic nominee announced his running mate, Fox News hosts pushed a number of unsupported theories largely centered around two themes: Harris forced her way onto the ticket and intends to usurp or overtaken Biden; and/or Biden is not mentally capable of selecting his own running mate, and so Harris was installed by a shadowy, unseen puppeteer.
The New York Times, Associated Press, and several other major news outlets reported that Biden was highly involved in the VP selection process, inviting candidates to his Delaware home for lengthy discussions or personally interviewing them on the phone.  
But almost immediately after Harris was announced, The Five co-host Greg Gutfeld repeatedly declaredwithout the remotest bit of evidencenot only that Biden wasnt involved in picking the senator, but that she was specifically selected by mysterious party figures to supplant Biden as the nominee (despite the fact that the nominating convention begins in less than a week).
We can pretty much agree that Joe wasnt involved in this decision. I dont believe he was in the room. He might have been in a room, but not the room. Maybe a room with a shawl and hot chocolate, Gutfeld quipped, though the joke seemed to fall flat as no one on the panel laughed. Ill say this again: I dont think the ticket is done yet.
Fox’s Greg Gutfeld suggests Joe Biden won’t be the nominee in the end:
“We can pretty much agree that Joe wasnt involved in this decision. I dont believe he was in the room… I think somebody else made this choice and I will say again, I dont think the ticket is done yet.” pic.twitter.com/HkthUHnxD8
Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) August 11, 2020
His co-host Jesse Watters agreed. This is kinda like when you go out to a restaurant with your grandfather and you have to order for him, he said, mimicking showing an elderly person a menu and picking a meal for them. Joe didnt make this pick. This pick was made for Joe, Watters blared before pivoting to suggest Harris is a Lady Macbeth-like figure secretly aiming to overtake Biden. I wouldnt trust Kamala Harris, the Fox host declared. I think shes very ambitious and we all know Joes only running for one term. So youre basically ushering in someone thats gonna, I dont think, have the best intentions.
Later on Tuesday, pro-Trump host Jeanine Pirro told Sean Hannity that she is not sure Biden selected Harris himself. Who really picked this woman to be the vice presidential candidate? she wondered. I believe Joe Biden isnt even going to be on the ticket in the end because i cant believe he would pick this woman.
Pirro also boosted on Twitter the right-wing claim that because a photograph of Bidens call with Harris to tap her as his veep pick showed a script on the desk under his laptop, Biden was not involved in picking the senator and may not have been mentally aware enough to know why he was calling the senator.
Is anyone surprised Bunker Biden is using a script? Pirro wrote. Why do you think they wont let him out? He cant complete a thought.
The following morning, on Fox & Friends, conservative columnist Miranda Devine asserted that ruthlessly ambitious Harris will be quick to push Joe Biden out of the way as soon as she gets a chance. Similarly, on Tuesday evening, primetime star Laura Ingraham claimed that Biden is ultimately a Trojan Horse for Harris and other unnamed figures to run the party. 
Citing Bidens announcement email, which included the line Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Donald Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation, Ingraham misinterpreted the final four words in a seemingly deliberate manner to suggest: Wait, wait, to lead this nation? Wasnt that you supposed to be on the top of the ticket doing all that leading for us, Joe? You know, that whole presidency then? Come on, man. Even Joe is witted enough to understand that hes not really going to be running the show if he wins in November.
Because of the need to fill hours of airtime, cable news as a medium is often rampant with baseless speculation about political matters. Indeed, Fox News is not alone in doing so. For instance, Tuesday afternoon on CNN, Democratic Rep. James Clyburn suggested that President Trump could drop Vice President Mike Pence from his own ticket, a suggestion that CNN host Don Lemon did not linger on.
But the zeal with which Fox News hosts immediately adopted official Trump campaign messaging and the sheer intensity of their factually unsupported theories about Harris suggest the network will be willing to go to great lengths to avoid even remotely even-keeled coverage of the California senator.
Beyond wildly speculating and theorizing about the hidden hands behind Harris selection, Fox News stars quickly leapt to label Harris as phony or nasty or power-hungry, directly lifting phrases from the Trump playbook.
Several Fox stars also promptly repeated the Trump campaign line that Harris once called Biden a racist (she did not, but the claim was repeated even after Foxs own Neil Cavuto debunked it on-air).
Fox News Host Neil Cavuto Corrects Trump Campaign: Kamala Harris Never Called Biden Racist
The networks coverage of Harris has also mirrored Trumpworld in its wild careening between bashing her as a ruthless cop (a concern-troll seizing upon the actual and long-documented concerns of leftists and civil libertarians who object to the senators spotty and often-contradictory record on criminal-justice reform, mass incarceration, and policing the police) while also somehow labelling her, in the words of Hannity, radical and extreme (in fact, she ran largely as a pragmatic moderate, in stark contrast to the more broadly progressive policies of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren).
And in some cases, since she was announced the Democratic veep pick, Fox News has even trotted out age-old smears about Harris racial identity and personal life.
A common theme on the network since Tuesday afternoon has been that Harriswho is of both Caribbean and Indian descent and graduated from Howard University, a historically Black schoolis not Black enough to be considered the first Black woman on a presidential ticket.
Because Harris fatherwho hailed from Jamaicaonce claimed to have descended from a plantation owner, far-right commentator Dinesh DSouza told Laura Ingraham on Tuesday evening the senator is not actually Black. Instead, DSouza said, she seems to be descended less from the legacy of, let’s say, Frederick Douglass, than she is from the legacy of the plantation itself.
That line of attack continued Wednesday morning when Stacy Washington, co-chair of Black Voices for Trump, told Fox & Friends that Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris because shes a Black woman, but to most Black Americans shes not because she is not descended from slaves, she is descended from slave owners.
The not actually Black theory was once touted by Trumpworld. Last summer, Donald Trump Jr. briefly boosted to his millions of followers a tweet that claimed Kamala Harris is *not* an American Black. She is half Indian and half Jamaican.
Elsewhere, on Tuesday evening, Tucker Carlson suggested that Harris owes her career to her past sexual relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. When Fox Nation star Tomi Lahren suggested the same last summertweeting Kamala did you fight for ideals or did you sleep your way to the top with Willie Brown?many of her co-workers publicly criticized her and she was forced to apologize. So far, no word from those same colleagues on Carlsons remarks.
Tucker Carlson Peddles Sexist Smear Against Kamala Harris
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