With less than 10 days to go until Election Day, Michelle Obama joined Kamala Harris at a rally in Michigan on Saturday. The former first lady did not mince words in the key battleground state where her fiery remarks were aimed at men who are increasingly flocking to Donald Trump this election cycle.
Much like her husband before her, Obama suggested American voters – males in particular – are sexist for not supporting Harris and said women will be “collateral damage” in Trump’s America.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth of RealClearPolitics to discuss Obama’s divisive rhetoric and why they don’t think it will resonate with undecided voters.
Razzle Dazzle
Obama’s speech consisted of two messages. The first was that we are demanding too much from Harris. “What we got this weekend was a lecture from Michelle Obama about how our standards for [Harris] are too high,” Megyn noted. “What we are expecting of her is to dazzle us, and that is unfair.”
To that point, the first lady criticized those who are “choosing to ignore Donald Trump’s gross incompetence while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn.” She then listed off what she sees as the former president’s flaws.
“I hope that you’ll forgive me if I am a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behavior, his obvious mental decline, his history as a convicted felon, a known slum lord, a predator found liable for sexual abuse,” Obama continued. “All of this, while we pick apart Kamala’s answers from interviews that he doesn’t even have the courage to do, y’all.”
Cannon accused Obama of a straw man argument. “When she doesn’t answer these questions, it’s not just that I am curious about what the policies would be as a voter of a Kamala Harris administration,” he said. “I want to know how she thinks. I want to see how her mind works. I want to see how she works things out.”
In his view, her “meandering” answers “that go nowhere” are a deflection. “Nobody is asking her to dazzle us at every turn. We are asking her to behave like a normal presidential candidate and give interviews, hold press conferences,” Cannon added. “I just want to see how her mind works. I want to see what kind of president she would be. I don’t think that is too much to ask.”
‘Absolutely Clueless’
But that wasn’t the former first lady’s only gripe. “She goes on to suggest that it is sexism and racism that leads us to set these standards or to want Trump instead,” Megyn noted. “She directed her message right to men.”
OBAMA: Please, do not put our lives in the hands of politicians – mostly men – who have no clue or do not care about what we as women are going through…
Anyone out there thinking about sitting out this election or voting for Donald Trump or a third party candidate in protest because you’re fed up, let me warn you: Your rage does not exist in a vacuum. If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage…
To the women listening: We have every right to demand that the men in our lives do better by us. We have to use our voices to make these choices clear to the men that we love. Our lives are worth more than their anger and disappointment…
Ultimately, Obama said she is up at night wondering “what in the world is going on” with voters not supporting Harris. “And it’s clear to me that the question isn’t whether Kamala is ready for this moment, because by every measure, she has demonstrated that she is ready,” she said. “The real question is, as a country, are we ready for this moment?”
The spark notes version: “Our lives as women are worth more than your anger and disappointment as a man,” Megyn posited. “That is the closing message.”
Will It Work?
Megyn believes Obama’s speech failed to take into account what most voters actually care about. “There are actually a lot of men and women who worry about domestic terrorism, who worry about a nuclear bomb, who worry about crime on the streets of places like New York, and thought things were better under Trump,” she explained. “We are not driven as a country, as a people by the sole issue of abortion and what might happen in one state where they’ve restricted it.”
She called the myopic message “absolutely clueless” for any voting block, let alone men. “It is just so divisive to look at the men and say: ‘Check your anger. I am more important, me and my uterus,'” she noted. “That is what is going to drive up the male vote? No, that kind of speech is going to make them go in there and pull the lever for Trump.”
Bevan said this is not the first time the Harris campaign has tried this tactic, and it has yet to really break through. “It is not a good idea to send out Michelle Obama, Barack Obama, and everybody else to try and browbeat voters into voting the way that you want them to, as opposed to persuading them and showing them – through argument and through issues – how your vision for the country is going to be better for them than the alternative,” he explained.
“It doesn’t strike me as compelling,” he concluded. “And I don’t know that there is any evidence that it is going to move the needle.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with the RealClearPolitics guys by tuning in to episode 928 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.