CBS vice presidential debate co-moderator and host of Face the Nation Margaret Brennan offered an unqualified and evidence-free defense of Vice President Kamala Harris- specifically, her widely panned price control proposals, which former President Donald Trump and many others have labeled as “communism”.

Watch the open to Face the Nation, as Brennan both asserts that such statements are “false”, “wrong”, and promised to show why such attacks were false:

CBS FACE THE NATION

8/18/24

10:30 AM

MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm Margaret Brennan in Washington and this week on Face the Nation, Democrats head to their convention in Chicago as inflation cools. And the political back and forth over economic policies intensifies. With the presidential contest lineup set to be formally locked in this week, both sides turn their attention to issue number one on the minds of the voters: the economy and inflation.

KAMALA HARRIS:  I will go after the bad actors and work to pass the first ever federal ban on price gauging(sic) on food.

DONALD TRUMP: A lot of people are very devastated by what’s happened with inflation and all of the other things.

But they say it's the most important subject. I'm not sure it is. But they say it’s the most important sort- inflation is the most important, but that’s part of economy.

BRENNAN: The former president's prescription is two fold.

TRUMP: Vote Trump and your incomes will soar…

BRENNAN: And a new line of false attacks on Vice President Harris.

TRUMP: Kamala went full communist. You heard that? She went full communist. She wants to destroy our country. After causing catastrophic inflation.

BRENNAN: We'll tell you why that is wrong, and how the voters see the candidates' handling of the economy in our new CBS News poll. 

Alas, viewers were not told why “this is wrong”, nor was there any evidence shown to prove “false” Trump’s attack of Harris’s proposals as “communist”. Subsequent interviews with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and Austan Goolsbee, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under the Obama Administration yielded none of the refutations that were promised. Beshear offered some justification for price controls via anti-monopoly mechanisms and Goolsbee gave Brennan nothing.

Viewers were left with an open worthy of a Democrat comms shop, rather than anything resembling journalism or a discussion of the day’s issues. Margaret Brennan will join Norah O’Donnell in co-moderating the October 1st vice presidential debate on CBS. Today’s performance suggests that we may look back at Candy Crowley as the good old days.