THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2024
Palm Beach is forever: Is there any possible chance the latest poll is "right?"
We refer to the latest poll from Fox News. Yesterday, results of that survey were reported, including on the Fox News Channel itself.
Those new results seem very odd. Online, the news report at the Fox news site starts off exactly like this:
Fox News Poll: Trump ahead of Harris by 2 points nationally
Former President Trump is ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential contest 50%-48%, according to a new Fox News national survey. That’s a reversal from last month, when Harris had a narrow advantage.
Harris, however, is ahead by 6 points among voters from the seven key battleground states...
That raises the question of whether the Democrat could win the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote. In 2000 and 2016, it was the GOP candidate who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College.
Is anything like that possible? Given recent electoral history, is it even imaginable that Candidate Trump could win the nationwide vote by two points, with Candidate Harris sweeping to substantial wins in the battleground states?
In theory, everything's possible! That said, some polling results may seem to come to us from a far distant land.
Yesterday, (we believe) we saw Bret Baier announce the two-point nationwide lead for Candidate Trump. After Baier proceeded to "interview" Candidate Harris, we did see Martha MacCallum come on the air and announce that Harris was ahead by six points across the battleground states.
Given recent history, those numbers seem to come from a distant land. For the vast majority of American citizens, so do the basic facts about Brett Baier's Florida mansion.
Last evening, the interruptions came thick and fast as Baier "interviewed" Harris. If it's dark comedy you enjoy, the dark comedy arrived quite quickly, during the session's first two minutes.
Below, you see Baier's first question for Harris, along with what immediately followed. Also, you see his first array of interruptions, the second or third or fourth of which includes an unintentionally comical twist.
That's the only statement we'll highlight in this ridiculous mess:
BAIER (10/16/24): You know, voters tell pollsters all over the country and here in Pennsylvania that immigration is one of the key issues that they're looking at this election, and specifically the influx of illegal immigrants from more than 150 countries. How many illegal immigrants would you estimate your administration has released into the country over the last three and a half years?
HARRIS: Well, I'm glad you raised the issue of immigration because I agree with you. It is a topic of discussion that people want to rightly have, and you know what I'm going to talk about right now, which is—
BAIER: Yeah, but just a number. Do you think it's one million, three million?
HARRIS: Brett, let's just get to the point, okay? The point is that we have a broken immigration system that needs to be repaired. And—
BAIER: So your Homeland Security Secretary said that 85 percent of apprehensions—
HARRIS: But I'm not finished. I'm not finished. We have an immigration system—
BAIER: It's a rough estimate of six million people—
HARRIS: —that needs to be—
BAIER: —have been released into the country. Let me just finish, and I'll get to the question. I promise you.
HARRIS: I was beginning to answer you.
At that point, Baier added a mini filibuster. We'll post that text below. To watch the entire "interview," you can just click here.
At any rate, there you see the first two or three or four interruptions, depending on how you're counting. Imaginably, the first interruption could even perhaps be defended, although the sheer volume of insistent interruption became absurd and indefensible as the auto-da-fe adjacent "interview" rolled along.
Just that quickly, though, the dark comedy arrived on the scene! "Let me just finish," the major star of cable news said at one point to Harris.
"Let me just finish, and I'll get to the question." He even included a promise!
Too funny! "Ler me just finish," the newsman said, as if he was the person running for office and she was the querulous journalist who wouldn't let the public hear what the candidate had to say!
"I was beginning to answer you," the actual candidate said. From there, Baier continued along with the aforementioned filibuster as the nominee finally realized that, at least for the moment, she would just have to sit and watch.
For our money, Baier staged an inexcusable gong-show in those opening moments, and the behavior continued from there. We'll guess that a mansion which exists in a distant land may have been part of the calculation which lay behind this procedure.
Despite what Lawrence O'Donnell would later angrily claim, Baier is not typically part of the extensive propaganda wing of the Fox News Channel. Yesterday, for whatever reason, another side of Bret Baier seemed to arrive on the scene.
Was that mansion in Palm Beach some part of Baier's calculation? Long ago and far away, the Washingtonian's Mimi Montgomery had perhaps pre-explained last evening's inexcusable performance by Baier.
Montgomery's report appeared in October 2023. Headline included, her report started like this, with plenty of photos to follow:
Fox News’s Bret Baier Lists DC Home for $32 Million—a Potential Record
A potentially record-setting DC home has just gone on the market: Fox News’s Bret Baier and his wife, Amy, are listing their French chateau-style [upscale Washington DC] home for $31.9 million, reports The Wall Street Journal. If it goes for asking price, it’ll be the most expensive residential sale in DC history...
The 16,250-square-foot estate was completed last year and sits on 1.47 acres, with five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and two half-baths. Other touches include a custom bar in the living room with a floor-to-ceiling wine display; a primary suite with two primary baths and heated floors; a home gym; a cinema; a spa; a two-story, indoor sports court; and a golf simulator. Throughout the gated property, you’ll also find a paved motor court with a fountain, tiered gardens, a 56-foot-long heated pool, a chipping and putting green, and two three-car garages.
This isn’t the Baiers only recent real-estate news: They purchased a $37 million Palm Beach mansion earlier this year. They sold their previous DC property, an over 10,000-square-foot home in Phillips Park, for $6.5 million in 2021, according to DC property records.
For the record, it was almost surely the "floor-to-ceiling wine display" which drove up the asking price on the newsman's otherwise modest 16,250-square-foot D.C. estate. The background to the proposed sale of that mansion might seem to go like this:
When Baier acquired the $37 million Palm Beach crib, he apparently had to let his French chateau-style Washington D.C. estate go! That said, according to Montgomery's report, the Baiers have been movin' on up in the real estate world over past four years:
The heartwarming story might be titled, Up from The Middle Class! By dint of hard work and coupon-clipping, the Baiers have come all the way up from the relative poverty of their previous 10,000-square-foot shack—all the way up to the Palm Beach cottage they'd already managed to acquire.
Just a guess! For most American citizens—for those who live in Red America and for those who live in Blue—knowledge of Baier's Palm Beach mansion exists in some unexplored distant land.
As we've noted many times in the past, information like this about media figures is almost never mentioned or discussed by other media figures. We'll guess that it wouldn't occur to many voters that a figure like Baier is moving and shaking in the distant land described in Montgomery's report.
That said, is it possible that the gentleman's Palm Beach mansion played a role in the way he conducted yesterday's "interview" of Candidate Harris? In this case, we're going to say that some such thing is extremely possible!
In our view, Lawrence O'Donnell went over the top in various ways as he ranted about Baier's journalism on last evening's Last Word. O'Donnell has many strengths as a journalist, but this is a less helpful impulse to which he's strongly inclined.
He tends to get his Boston Irish up, at which point he starts referring to everything as a "lie." So it went last night, though there were other problems with his angry, 12-minute opening statement, which you can watch by clicking here.
At one point, like almost everyone on CNN and MSNBC, O'Donnell played a lightly doctored piece of videotape from Trump's appearance on Fox last Sunday morning with Maria Bartiromo.
(Is that edited bit of videotape better described as "doctored-adjacent?" We'll leave that up to you!)
However you want to score it, we regard that edited videotape as basically misleading. It's not as bad as what Baier did throughout the course of last evening's "interview," but it reminds us of a basic point:
If somewhere there does exists a discourse run by fully competent journalists, that discourse is taking place in a far distant land from here.
In our view, Bret Baier adopted a new role last night:
Normally, he isn't part of the extensive propaganda wing of the Fox News Channel. He isn't Hannity and he isn't Gutfeld. He isn't even Judge Jeanine, and he isn't Laura Ingraham.
In his normal performance, he isn't like the nine (9!) regular co-hosts who patrol the Approved Tribal Landscape as part of the Fox & Friends franchise. We refer to the nine (9!) co-hosts who appear on Fox & Friends, on Fox & Friends Weekend or on Fox & Friends First.
He certainly isn't Mark Levin, also known as The Man Who Screams. He isn't like the rotating panelists who all agree with each other about every point on The Big Weekend Show.
Normally, Baier actually doesn't function as part of that well-equipped army, but last night, he plainly did. Just a guess:
People sometimes get released by Fox, and Baier may have a note on that Palm Beach mansion he has to keep up.
Baier's performance was awful. Four hours later, O'Donnell came on and ranted in a familiar way.
For ourselves, we were disappointed—almost dismayed—by at least two parts of the candidate's performance. Here's what will happen next:
On Fox, voters will be told about those parts of her performance all day long today and then on into the night. On CNN and MSNBC, those non-answer answers by Candidate Harris will be disappeared—will be swept far away.
Does a competent national discourse exist somewhere, monitored and moderated by a fully competent press corps?
If so, that discourse is underway in a land far distant from here. We'll try to get to that doctored videotape in the next few days. We'll definitely look at two non-answers by Candidate Harris in tomorrow's installment.
Did someone gain from last night's event? We have no idea! Candidate Harris may have gained a bit of support, or it could be that she lost some.
Meanwhile, could that new Fox News poll possibly be "right?" Is it possible that Trump could win the nationwide popular vote, but get swept away in the battleground states?
Our answer to your question is this:
Polling comes and polling goes—but Palm Beach may be forever.
Tomorrow: Once again, Harris is asked about the southern border during the first three years
Saturday: At long last, our emerging theory about southern border policy during those first three years
He blustered ahead from there: "Let me just finish," the newsman implored, and then he blustered ahead.
The candidate was getting in very few words. Continuing our transcript from above, here's what the newsman said next:
BAIER: Let me just finish, and I'll get to the question. I promise you.
HARRIS: I was beginning to answer you.
BAIER: And when you came into office, your administration immediately reversed a number of Trump border policies, most significantly the policy that required illegal immigrants to be detained through deportation, either in the U.S. or in Mexico, and you switched that policy. They were released from custody awaiting trial. So instead included in those were a large number of single men, adult men, who went on to commit heinous crimes.
So looking back, do you regret the decision to terminate Remain in Mexico at the beginning of your administration?
On and on the newsman went as the candidate sat and watched. In the modern media landscape, it's Palm Beach mortgages which must be paid, attention perhaps a bit less.
