VICTOR JOECKS: Left resorts to denial to defend Harris

Some of Kamala Harris’ positions are so extreme that her leftist allies won’t admit she actually holds them.

During Tuesday’s debate, former President Donald Trump said Vice President Harris “wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.”

Her allies reacted with shock at Trump’s accusation.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., quoted Trump’s line and then wrote, “Yall serious right now? He says anything. He just put words together that scares people and barely forms sentences.”

New Yorker columnist Susan Glasser scoffed, “What the hell was he talking about? No one knows, which was, of course, exactly Harris’s point.”

These leftists simply couldn’t believe it was true. Even Time magazine initially reported that his statement was false. But it wasn’t.

“As a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris filled out a questionnaire saying she supported taxpayer-funded gender transition treatment for detained immigrants,” Time wrote in one of the great corrections of all time.

A similar sequence occurred with abortion.

“Her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine,” Trump said about Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. “He also says execution after birth, it’s execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born, is OK.”

That led to a dubious fact-check by supposed moderator Linsey Davis. “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born,” she said.

“For the record: You cannot have an abortion in the ninth month,” the NAACP wrote on X. “You cannot have an abortion after birth.”

They’re both wrong.

On rare occasions, an infant survives an abortion attempt. In other words, a baby is born despite an effort to kill her. Minnesota used to require abortionists to report those instances and provide care to “preserve” the baby’s life. Infants are totally dependent on others to survive. Withholding needed care from an infant is a way to put a baby to death. Put another way, that’s an execution.

In 2021, five babies were born alive after an abortion attempt. Sadly, they all died. In 2023, Walz signed a bill removing the requirement that medical personnel provide care to “preserve” infants born alive. The bill also eliminated the reporting requirements.

In 2019, the Senate voted on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. It would have required doctors to provide care “to preserve the life and health of the child” born after “an abortion or attempted abortion.” That shouldn’t have been controversial, but Harris voted against it.

Nine states and Washington, D.C., have no age limit on abortion. In many other states, including Nevada, the third-trimester “limit” is a farce. Those laws allow late-term abortion to preserve the mental health of the mother. In November, Nevada will vote on Question 6, which has the same loophole.

This has happened outside the debate too.

In August, Harris endorsed a 25 percent tax on unrealized capital gains for the extremely wealthy.

“If you tax unrealized gains, you’re going to kill the stock market,” billionaire Mark Cuban recently told CNBC.

Cuban’s right about that, but he still supports Harris. His justification is essentially that she’s being dishonest. He’s talked to the campaign.

“Every conversation I’ve had is that it’s not going to happen,” he said.

Harris’ proposals and stances are so extreme that Democrats’ best defense is to deny they exist.

Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.