Transcript of Harris’ Media Blitz & FEMA’s Hurricane Response Controversy | 10.8.24

After giving a historically low number of interviews, Kamala Harris launches what her campaign is calling a Media Blitz.

You want to expand the child tax credit.

Yes, I do.

You want to give tax breaks to first-time home buyers and people starting small businesses.

Correct. How are you going to pay for that?

Why is Harris reversing strategies, and will it help or hurt her chances in November?

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief, John Bickley. It's Tuesday, October eighth, and this is Morning Wire. With a second hurricane on the horizon, lawmakers ramp up criticism of FEMA's inadequate response. We go on the record with House Speaker Mike Johnson.

It's inexcusable that the executive branch of the federal government has just failed in this effort.

Hillary Clinton warns that a free internet can't be controlled as she calls for the policing of social media content.

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Amid rising pressure to sit for interviews with the press, Kamala Harris and Tim Walls are finally embarking this week on what the campaign calls a Media Blitz.

Here with more is Daily Wires' Senior Editor, Kabbit Phillips. So, Kabbit, the Harris camp is breaking their media silence this week. What can you tell us?

Well, first, it's hard to overstate just how unusual and unprecedented the Harris Walsh media strategy has been so far. The two have conducted fewer interviews than any presidential ticket on record. But as the polls have tightened and Donald Trump has seemingly gained momentum, they are reversing course with 27 days to go. The campaign in recent days announced a media blitz that will include a string of appearances by Harris and Walls on shows like The View, Howard Stern, Jimmy Kimmel, and 60 Minutes. Now, there were Democrats who expressed concern over that strategy of avoiding the press, saying if and when Harris did finally sit down for interviews, she would be rusty. To that point, there were some moments where she struggled during her 60 Minutes appearance last night. For example, here she is when pressed for details on how exactly she will pay for her economic plans.

Small businesses are part of the backbone of America's economy.

Pardon me, Madam Vice President. The question was, how are you going to pay for it?

Well, one of the things is I'm going to make sure that the richest among us who can afford it pays Pay their fair share in taxes.

It is not right that teachers and nurses and firefighters are paying a higher tax rate than billionaires and the biggest corporations.

And I plan on making that fair.

But we're dealing with the real world here.

But the real world includes- How are you going to get this to Congress?

Now, we touched on this briefly yesterday on the show, but Harris also made an appearance on a pretty controversial podcast in the past week or so. How has that played?

Yeah, controversial for a few reasons. First, the sex podcast, Call Her Daddy, is wildly popular with young women and also wildly raunchy. The most recent episodes include conversations about cheating on your husband and graphic sex advice. You get the idea. The interview was taped last week in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Critics say that it's one thing to go on that show at all. It's another to go on when millions of Americans are in crisis. Here are some of that interview, much of which was focused on abortion.

I want to take a moment and can we try to think of any law that gives the government the power to make a decision- I know what you're going to ask. About a man's body? No. Let's just pause. No.

Is there any law? No.

It's worth noting those comments sparked quite a bit of debate online, with many cite the military draft and vaccine mandates as examples of laws impacting men's bodies.

Now, the vice president's running mate has also had a high-profile interview of his own this week. Tell us about that.

Yeah, to this point, like Harris, Walls has largely avoided those sit-down interviews, especially with non-friendly outlets. But the governor did appear on Fox News Sunday, and there were some fireworks. For example, here he is being pressed about his position on abortion.

You signed the bill that makes it legal through all nine months. Is that a position you think Democrats should advocate for nationally? Look, the vice president and I have been clear the restoration of Roe versus Wade is what we're asking for. But that law goes far beyond Roe v Wade. To make her own choice.

The law is very clear. It does not change that. That has been debunked on every occasion.

But wait, let's agree. What you signed is There's not a single limit through nine months of pregnancy. Roe had a trimester framework that did have limits through the pregnancy.

So expect to see a bit more of Harrison Walls on your airwaves in coming days. Now, we'll see if this is a short term play or a long-term reset, and more importantly, how voters respond when they see these two candidates finally speaking off the cuff.

All right, well, we'll see if this new strategy helps. Kabbit, thanks for reporting. Anytime.

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Fema, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has come under increased fire over the last week as complaints have mounted over allegations of potentially dangerous delays and mismanagement.

Joining us now to discuss is House Speaker Mike Johnson. Speaker Johnson, thank you so much for coming on.

Yeah, sure.

Now, there's been a lot of criticism about FEMA's response following Hurricane Helene. Residents have cited delays, inadequate support on the ground. There's also been concerns about a dearth of funds. Is this criticism of FEMA fair?

I think it is, yeah. I think Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Secretary Mayorkas DHS, of course, FEMA is a division of DHS. I think they have failed the American people. It's an utter lack of leadership in responding to this hurricane. I'm from Louisiana. We're a hurricane-prone state. I mean, we know these disasters well. The thing about a hurricane is you know well in advance that it's coming. It's not like a tornado that pops out of the sky or an earthquake or something. I mean, there's no excuse for this. Joe Biden actually claimed that North Carolindians were, quote, very happy with the administration's response a few days ago. That is not the truth. If you talk to people there on the ground, and I'll be in Nashville and the surrounding area in Western North Carolina on Wednesday, the stories they tell are harrowing. We We still have people in need of rescue and supplies and water, food, and medicine.

There's been a lot of criticism about the use of funding, some misconceptions maybe about that with the legal immigrant funding through FEMA. What is the truth there? Does FEMA have enough money to get through this disaster?

Yes, we were very deliberate. Congress, before we left town, in fact, I think it was about 36 hours before Helene made landfall, we appropriated $20 billion additional dollars to FEMA, and we gave them immediate drawdown authority on those funds. That means that FEMA had, by my calculation, about $22 billion in the accounts for immediate disaster response. Now, that is not obviously what is needed for the long term. And because Hurricane Helene was so broad in its swath and affected six states. I mean, this is going to be a very, very expensive disaster. The way it works is, of course, the states assess the damage and they send the calculations to the federal government and then Congress acts appropriately and provides what's necessary. It's going to take the state some time to do that assessment. Again, as of right now, they're still doing rescue more than a week out. So all that is happening. The controversy has been about how FEMA has taken its eye off the ball. Under Mayorkas's leadership at DHS, they've been engaging in things that are not their job. The acronym says what FEMA is about. It's supposed to be the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

They should be focused on helping Americans recover from disasters and not straining resources that go to other programs like catering to illegal aliens. This is one One of the reasons that we impeached Mayorkas. Chuck Schumer in the Senate let it die, but he deserved it. I mean, this is inexcusable. The American people are outraged by it, and so are House Republicans and Senate Republicans.

Now, you noted that Congress has already allocated $20 billion. Is there anything more Congress can do right now to help at this time?

Well, all of our members in the affected states, and I myself and leadership, are directly engaged. We have our sleeves rolled up. We're helping, working. We're with the people, supplying every the possible bit of assistance that we can. And I've been so just proud of our members for how they have just dug in to help their people. Congress is at the ready. I mean, if there is a need to call Congress back in a session, we will do it. But right now, with the use of that 20 billion, a FEMA should be using every dime of that to supply every need that's out there. And I just don't think they've done it well enough. So in this meantime, what we're doing is demand an accountability, pushing them to do their job. I mean, I got on the phone directly with Secretary Mayorkas, a a couple of nights ago. When Elon Musk was having difficulty delivering Starlink for communications to the people in the high altitudes of North Carolina, they were actually being impeded by his accounts by federal agents. So I talked with Elon, and then I called the Secretary of Homeland Security myself, and I said, get it straight, and they did within a couple of hours.

So Starlink is being delivered. We have private organizations doing extraordinary works, Ameritons Purse, other nonprofits. Of course, we have the whole church network and all the volunteers there. That's a big part of it. The federal government has help, and the people are as well. We're going to get through this because we're a resilient people.

Well, yes, we are. Speaker Johnson, thank you so much for joining us. Hillary Clinton is calling on the federal government to crack down on social media content. Join joining voices like John Kerry and Bill Gates. But free speech advocates say their demands are tantamount to censorship and violate the First Amendment.

Daily Wire reporter, Amanda Prestigiacomo, is here now with more. Amanda, let's start with Clinton and her calm comments that sparked a lot of controversy. What exactly did she say?

Well, she's out promoting her new memoir, and on Saturday, CNN asked her about increasing divisiveness in our culture. She answered by saying new federal guardrails to moderate social media need to be at the top of the legislative agenda. She also called for repealing Section 230 that prevents social media platforms from being held liable for content their users post.

We now know that that was an overly simple view, that if the platforms, whether it's Facebook Facebook or Twitter X or Instagram or TikTok, whatever they are, if they don't moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control.

It's worth pointing out that this wasn't a one-off comment for Clinton. She's been out calling for not just the US to step up regulations against online speech, but also European nations. In 2022, after Elon Musk pledged to restore free speech on Twitter, she asked the EU to pass the Digital Services Act. That banned speech the government views as disinformation. And of course, the EU did so soon after. Then last month, she said on MSNBC that Americans who post-Russian propaganda should be civilly or even in some cases, criminally charged.

Why does she think these types of regulations are necessary?

Well, her comments on CNN were somewhat ambiguous. It wasn't clear exactly who the we was when she said, We will lose total control, or what she meant by losing control. But she did couch some of her comments in protecting children. Some legal experts, though, they say that's disingenuous. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, for example, he called Clinton's comments a textbook example of the anti-free speech narrative. He said that the other examples she offered as for why this new oversight is needed, like child porn, that's already banned by federal law. When we talked with Speaker Mike Johnson earlier, we asked him about Clinton's push to have the government require platforms to police speech. Here's what he had to say.

This is what the left is about. They want to silence opposition. They want to destroy the free marketplace of ideas because when thinking people have information, it's not good for the Marxists. And the Socialists, and they know that.

Now, we do seem to be in an era when American leaders are more comfortable calling for censorship. It's reminiscent of some comments that we heard at the World Economic Forum as well.

Right. At the World Economic Forum just two weeks ago, John Kerry actually called the First Amendment a major block to the federal government's ability to prevent so-called disinformation. He lamented the fact that on social media, there's no clear arbiters over what is the truth. He said that if Kamala Harris wins, he hopes her administration will implement change. They're not alone. We talked about Harris and her running mate, Tim Walls, making similar comments. In fact, Walls incorrectly said at the vice presidential debate that misinformation, so just being wrong, isn't protected by the First Amendment. Then you have billionaire Bill Gates, who recently called for using AI to police online speech. So this definitely isn't just one powerful figure demanding more censorship.

Right. This is definitely a growing chorus of voices as we've covered. Amanda, thanks for reporting. You're welcome.

Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.

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