Freddy Gray

Somebody give Bill Whitaker a prize. In his 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, which aired last night, the CBS correspondent did what no other journalist has successfully done since the Vice President was thrust to the top of the Democratic ticket: journalism. He asked Harris challenging questions about the matters voters care about most. He was civil, unaggressive, but professional enough to push her for clear answers. And Harris just couldn’t cope. Her performance was Prince Andrew-like in its awfulness.  That caused the Harris-bot to malfunction On immigration, for instance, Whitaker asked Harris why the Biden-Harris administration had only recently started tackling the issue, after almost four years and an unprecedented surge in illegal border crossings.

‘Some things are more important than staying in power,’ Joe Biden just told the United Nations, and the General Assembly broke into sustained applause. Biden left the stage clasping his hand to his chest, so touched that he had so touched the crowd.  ‘It’s your people that matter the most,’ said Biden. ‘Never forget we are here to serve the people. Not the other way around.’ It says quite a lot about the state of modern political leadership that such remarks are construed as moving insight.  Let’s try to put aside how bogus Biden’s departing shtick is. The truth, which we all know, is that he spent the best part of four years refusing to admit that he was too old to serve effectively as America’s Commander-in-Chief.

A day after nearly being shot again, the 78-year-old Donald Trump is once more being mocked for sounding like a fool while talking about cryptocurrency. In an interview with Farokh Sarmad, another of these hugely popular male influencers whom the vast majority of people have never heard of, Trump ruminated on the importance of making America the ‘crypto capital’ of the planet.  Sitting in Mar-a-Lago, underneath the hilariously kitsch ‘Visionary’ portrait of young Donald in white trousers and a tennis jumper, Trump told the Persian-Canadian Farokh that he learns about crypto from his sons. ‘Barron is a young guy,’ he said. ‘He's got four wallets or something. I'm saying "explain this to me". He knows it so well. And Eric and Don. I have a lot of respect for them.

As if there hadn’t been enough drama in America in 2024, Donald Trump has survived another assassination attempt. The attempted killing of the 45th president at his golf course in Palm Beach, Florida yesterday afternoon was not nearly as threatening or deadly as the shooting nine weeks ago in Butler, Pennsylvania, which so nearly ended Trump's life, killed a spectator and injured others. The Secret Service, who have faced so much criticism for their failings in Butler, found the would-be killer’s weapon before he was able to target Trump, shots were fired, and the suspect appears to have been arrested fleeing the scene. Nobody was seriously harmed. What took place in Florida will show voters that a lot of people want Trump dead It’s still big news, though.

George Clooney this week praised Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 election as ‘the most selfless thing that anybody has done since George Washington'. We heard this idea echoing throughout Democratic circles even before Biden stood down in late July – that he was nobly standing aside, in the manner of America’s first president, relinquishing power to save democracy for the greater good. Step forward the 21st century answer to John Adams: Kamala Harris.  It's all such obvious rubbish. George Washington wanted to retire (for the third time) to Mount Vernon after his first term but was persuaded to run again in 1792 by Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison and others.

Barack Obama wrote The Audacity of Hope. The Kamala Harris story of 2024 could be called The Audacity of Desperation. Her brief candidacy has been an awesome display of chutzpah. With just weeks to go before the election, a panicked Democratic party pushed aside their failing Commander-in-Chief and replaced him with Harris, the distinctly unpopular vice-president. She was then shamelessly presented to America and the world as an agent of change, even though she has no clear vision or agenda of her own. Twelve days have passed since Kamala Harris accepted the nomination and still her campaign website offers no clues as to what she might do as president. She has made some noises that sound a bit like policies. She'll protect abortion.