MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said Monday that Fox News hosts “deliberately” pronounce Vice President Kamala Harris’ name wrong.
Trump agreed to a Sept. 4 debate moderated by Fox News hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, while Harris’ campaign said she would attend the scheduled ABC debate on Sept. 10. Scarborough argued that Harris was not likely to accept a debate on Fox News, accusing the anchors of intentionally mispronouncing her name. (RELATED: ‘Trump Is Still Pulling Slightly Ahead’: Fox News Guest Says Kamala Harris Still Faces Uphill Climb In Swing States)
“They all deliberately mispronounce her name, Ka-MA-la,” Scarborough said. “Repeatedly. All the hosts. KA-mala, KA-mala, KA-mala.”
WATCH:
‘They All Deliberately Mispronounce Her Name’: ‘Morning Joe’ Comes Up With Excuse For Kamala Harris Ducking Fox News Debate pic.twitter.com/TIIKYbWNyC
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 5, 2024
“I mean, some of them don’t do it on purpose, but there’s definitely like a kind of thing they’re doing there to make even her name seem different or whatever,” co-host Mika Brzezinski responded.
Scarborough then deliberately mispronounced the last name of Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as an effort to make his point before co-host Jonathan Lemire chimed in with further thoughts on Fox News hosting a debate.
“The setting would be rigged. To your point — why — why would she go to Fox, which is still putting forth these bad-faith arguments? I’ve talked to people in both campaigns who believe eventually a deal will be reached, probably on that ABC date,” Lemire said. “Maybe Trump will negotiate some changes. Well, maybe this time we will have a crowd as opposed to last time. Because recall, the Biden team did kind of get what they wanted in terms of format. It ended up not working out for the president. So there — there’s some room here for negotiation.”
“But I do think, especially if you’re Trump, my guess would be he will do this debate eventually for two reasons,” Lemire continued. “One, I don’t think he could stand being called a coward if he actually does duck the debate with the vice president. But secondly, if momentum continues this direction and Harris gets a boost from her running mate pick, gets a boost from a strong convention a couple of weeks from now, and we’ve heard from Karl Rove at the very top of the show, if she’s got momentum and got a lead, well, Trump’s going to need — he’s the one who’s going to need the debate in an effort to try to change the narrative of the race.”
Brzezinski noted that Trump could “make a big impact” in a debate with Harris.
“Yeah, that would be an opportunity. And he does bulldoze people and he doesn’t have boundaries of the truth. So a debate is where he could make a big impact if he wanted to,” Brzezinski said. (RELATED: ‘They Haven’t Changed Out The Inflation’: CNN Guest Says Economy Will Catch Up To Kamala Harris)
Trump leads Harris by 0.7% in a national head-to-head matchup, according to the Real Clear Polling average of polls from July 22 to Aug. 2, with Harris taking a slight lead of 0.4% when Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein and independent presidential candidates Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are included in surveys.
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