Gullible media repeats GOP spin that Trump is ‘thrilled’ by Walz pick

Donald Trump and his campaign were expecting Vice President Kamala Harris to pick Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate, and they had an ugly game plan for it. They were going to exploit Shapiro being Jewish and try to inflame divisions among Democrats on the war in Gaza. Harris blew that plan up when she picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, leaving Trump to fall back on the generic claim that Walz is a “dangerously liberal extremist” who will “unleash HELL ON EARTH.”  Trump isn’t giving up on stoking division—"This is the worst team ever assembled for a Jewish person, or for Israel, either one,” he said Wednesday on “Fox & Friends”—but he’s trying a new messaging ploy: Trump and Republicans are "thrilled" about Harris picking the “extremist liberal” Walz.  And of course, traditional media outlets are eating it up. On Tuesday, Axios ran a whole story about how Republicans “expressed surprise and relief” about Harris choosing Walz. “Republicans saw Walz as the easier target for them as they try to regain momentum after a rough few weeks for the GOP (and their own VP candidate),” Axios reported, saying Republicans plan to “paint Walz as far left.” The Hill and other outlets were only too happy to print that Trump is "thrilled” with the pick, reporting on Trump’s “Fox & Friends” interview. “He’s a very liberal man, and he’s a shocking pick,” The Hill quotes Trump as saying. “I could not be more thrilled.”  Axios ran a similar story about that interview, quoting Trump’s “thrilled” remark and writing that Walz gives Republicans a new line of attack on the Democratic ticket. Never mind that Republicans were already falsely attacking Harris for being "the most liberal senator." Even New York Magazine had to write about how “thrilled” various other Republicans are about running against Walz. But as it turns out, these Republicans were so happy about it that not a single one went on the record in the piece. “Today is the best day for the Trump campaign since Kamala Harris was picked,” said one of the many anonymous Republicans. Of course, Republicans are going to say these things, and of course, any candidate Harris chose—short of independent Sen. Joe Manchin, maybe—was going to be labeled as an ultraliberal whom Republicans couldn’t wait to run against. They surely had the press releases and the fundraising emails ready to go, all they needed to do was plug in the name.  To his credit, at least one New York Times reporter gets the game. For all we know not picking Josh Shapiro could cost Harris Pa. and the election… But the barrage of sigh-of-relief stories from the Republican side suggests it’s also a messaging effort to arrest her momentum — by injecting an unforced-error narrative.— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) August 7, 2024 For all of Trump’s supposed excitement about facing the Harris-Walz ticket, he’s going to have to give up this dream: winning Minnesota. In a rally last month in St. Cloud, he insisted he would win the state this time, saying, “[I]f they don’t cheat, we will win this state easily.” The state hasn’t voted for a Republican president since Richard Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972. Thrilled or not—and with Harris and Walz’s massive crowd sizes, he’s probably not—Trump’s continued attacks on Walz as an extreme liberal could be a problem if the traditional media keeps buying into his schtick. Walz is still an unknown with the vast majority of voters: 70% of registered voters in a recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll had no opinion of Walz. There’s a danger in the media helping Trump to define him.  On the other hand, the media is going to have a hard time convincing the public that this man is a dangerous extremist. Let’s thwart Trump and the traditional media and help Harris and Walz win this November. Donate Now! RELATED STORIES: Enjoy 13 videos of Democratic VP pick Tim Walz being awesome No disarray here: Democrats unite in support of Harris-Walz ticket The Harris-Walz campaign’s first day, by the numbers