Journalists Against Journalism. Plus. . .

It’s Thursday, September 26. Maddy Kearns here, and this is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Coming up: Sanctioned Penn professor Amy Wax talks to Peter Savodnik; Olivia Reingold on the fight to win the Keystone State’s Latino Belt; and much more. But first: a note on last night’s Kamala Harris interview. 

Journalists Against Journalism 

Last week on Real Time with Bill Maher, MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle all but endorsed Kamala Harris for president. 

Dressing down New York Times columnist Bret Stephens for arguing that Harris had to do more to earn his vote, and that the vice president owed the American people a better explanation of her policy positions, she said: “Kamala Harris is not running for ‘perfect.’ She’s running against Trump. We have two choices.” 

“I don’t think it’s a lot to ask her to sit down for a real interview as opposed to a puff piece,” Stephens replied. 

Ruhle doubled down: “When you move to Nirvana, give me your real estate broker’s number and I’ll be your next-door neighbor. We don’t live there.” 

Reminder: TV anchor Stephanie Ruhle claims to be a journalist. Her obligation is supposed to be to her viewers and the truth. If you’re a member of the Fourth Estate, the thing you should argue for—always and everywhere—is accountability, and you get that through asking powerful people tough questions. Maybe we’re a little old-fashioned here at The Free Press, but we think journalists should be in favor of journalism. But here was a journalist arguing against it. 

Ruhle’s attack on her own supposed vocation was depressing enough. But then, things got even worse. After she defended Harris for not sitting for interviews, Ruhle was rewarded by the Harris campaign. . . with an interview. 

Last night, Harris sat down with Ruhle. It was, astonishingly, her first solo interview with a national broadcaster since she became the Democratic nominee in July. (Although she did meet with Oprah as part of a virtual “Unite for America” rally that aired September 19, in which the pair rehashed Harris’s talking points on immigration, abortion, and Donald Trump with enthusiastic audience and celebrity participation.)

Ruhle’s interview with Harris covered her “economic vision,” views on immigration, and the last time she had to make a “gut decision,” which she said was when she chose her running mate, Tim Walz. (Watch the full thing here.) But there is still a lot we don’t know about her policy positions. 

For instance: Does the vice president still support abolishing the death penalty? What about decriminalizing prostitution? Or giving Dreamers a pathway to citizenship? These are just some of the questions Axios’s Alex Thompson has tried asking Harris’s campaign. But in every case, her team has refused to comment. And when the L.A. Times asked Harris, who formerly served as attorney general of California, how she would vote on the Golden State’s tough-on-crime ballot measure—you guessed it, she declined. 

Meanwhile, ask Harris “Why is joy important to you to insert into this election and what do you make of Republicans using that as a way to suggest that you’re not a serious candidate?” as one reporter did at a convention for black journalists, and she’ll happily answer. 

“There’s some times when your adversaries will try to turn your strength into a weakness,” Harris replied. “Don’t you let them.” 

Especially when your greatest strength is your ability to dodge questions. 

Penn Professor Amy Wax Punished for “Inconvenient Facts”

The University of Pennsylvania has sanctioned Amy Wax, a tenured law professor, for “flagrant unprofessional conduct” after its two-year investigation concluded she had “a history of making sweeping and derogatory generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status.” But her defenders claim she’s been punished for wrongthink, and say her sanctions are an assault on academic freedom. 

Peter Savodnik called Wax and got her side of the story. Wax describes “a double standard” in which “the oppressed must always be defended, and the First Amendment neutrality principle goes down the drain.” Students today “have such a fence around their brain,” she told Peter. “They see unpolitically correct thoughts coming from 1,000 feet away, and they zap them off. That is bad for their intellectual development. But you know what it’s really bad for? Our democracy, our republic, if we can keep it.” 

Click here to read Peter’s interview with the controversial professor: “Penn Professor Amy Wax Punished for ‘Inconvenient Facts.’ ” 

The Campaign to Win Over the “Latino Belt”

In a tight race that will be swung by a handful of states, Latinos could decide the election. On Saturday, Olivia Reingold was on the ground in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where nearly a third of the town’s population is Latino. She stopped by a Harris campaign. But of the rally’s 1,500 or so attendees, fewer than 50 seemed to be Latinos, according to one official. Some polls have Trump winning as much as 41 percent of the demographic nationwide. As Harris’s director of Hispanic media put it: “We don’t take anything for granted, and we understand that we have to work hard to earn every Latino vote.” 

Read Olivia’s full dispatch, “The Campaign to Win Over the ‘Latino Belt.’” 

Fallout After “Zionist” Canceled from Author Panel

On Tuesday, my colleague Joe Nocera reported on a troubling incident at a book festival in upstate New York. Author Elisa Albert was slated to chair a panel at the festival, but the event was canceled after the two other participants refused to appear alongside a “Zionist.” Today, Joe reports on the latest fallout from the row: 

Aisha Abdel Gawad is not having a good week. In the days since her refusal to take part in a panel at a book festival over the weekend because the moderator, Elisa Albert, was a Zionist, she claims (without offering proof) that she had become “the target of a campaign of intimidation, defamation and death threats.” 

At the Greenwich Academy in Connecticut, where Gawad teaches high school English, the school circled the wagons, sending an email to parents defending her—and including a statement Gawad wrote insisting that she opposes antisemitism—and she dropped out of the panel only because “it did not feel like a productive forum for me.” (Quick reminder: The topic the panelists were supposed to address was “Girls Coming of Age.”)

But the Greenwich Academy also added that it would “continue to monitor the situation” and “respond accordingly” if new information came to light. The Free Press has learned that the academy took another step that has not been reported: It called recent graduates to ask them about Gawad’s English classes.

In addition to her day job at the Greenwich Academy, Gawad had also recently been named a writer-in-residence at the Wilton Library in Wilton, Connecticut. After reports of the controversy at the book festival emerged, officials in Wilton, including the library’s executive director Caroline Mandler, received some 2,000 emails from citizens upset about Gawad’s residency, which includes a $30,000 stipend. 

“Ms. Mandler,” the email read in part, “will you put up a sign on her office door to warn ‘Zionists’ to stay away? Will you ban books that offend her? Should Jewish patrons wear yellow stars lest she accidentally speak to a ‘Zionist’?”

Late Wednesday afternoon, Mandler announced that after a meeting of the library’s board, Gawad would no longer be its writer in residence. The library’s press release noted that because she had only started on September 4, she hadn’t had time to direct any programs. 

Presumably, she hadn’t had time to collect the $30,000 either.

New York mayor Eric Adams. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

• New York mayor Eric Adams was indicted on federal charges Wednesday. Adams and those close to him had been caught in a web of corruption probes, but the nature of the charges is not yet known as the indictment is sealed. “I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target—and a target I became,” said Adams in a statement last night. “If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit.” Earlier, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had called on Adams to resign “for the good of the city,” but it looks as though there’s little chance of that happening anytime soon.

• In a first, Hezbollah fired a missile at the Tel Aviv area Wednesday. The IDF intercepted the missile, and Hezbollah said they had targeted Mossad’s headquarters. It comes as Israel is reportedly readying for a ground invasion of Lebanon. “You hear the jets overhead; we have been striking all day,” General Herzi Halevi told troops Wednesday. “This is both to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.” 

• A Senate committee investigating the Secret Service’s handling of the first attempted assassination of Donald Trump has released its preliminary report. The bipartisan panel found that, based on interviews with senior Secret Service officials and local police, security failures were “foreseeable, preventable” and many of the problems raised “remain unaddressed.” 

• The Chinese commerce ministry has threatened to sanction PVH, the U.S. owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, for suspected “discriminatory measures” against cotton companies in China’s Xinjiang region. Since 2021, the U.S. has banned imports from the area, citing concerns over forced labor and human rights abuses of the Uyghur minority population. This week’s threat marks China’s attempt at retaliation. 

• At a think-tank ceremony in New York on Monday evening, Elon Musk introduced Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni as someone “even more beautiful inside than outside.” Meloni returned the compliment, thanking the billionaire for his “precious genius.” The love-bombing was so intense that Musk decided to clarify the nature of their relationship: “I was there with my mom. There is no romantic relationship whatsoever with PM Meloni.” This tittle-tattle was in sharp contrast to Meloni’s speech, a serious address on the future of the West, which you can listen to and read here.

• Republicans are losing their Electoral College advantage. So argues The New York Times’ Nate Cohn. In recent years, Democrats have complained not only that the system disadvantages them but that it is systematic white supremacy. It’s even possible, Cohn says, that this time around, Trump could win the popular vote, but lose the electoral college.

• In an interview on The View yesterday, Joe Biden said of Kamala Harris: “As vice president, there wasn’t a single thing that I did that she couldn’t do and so I was able to delegate her responsibility on everything from foreign policy to domestic policy.” Not exactly helpful for Harris, who is eager to present herself as the “change” candidate. 

• Five people have been arrested in Spain for an elaborate scheme to defraud two women out of more than $350,000 by posing as Hollywood actor Brad Pitt. Ladies, come on. Brad Pitt asking you for money makes the old Nigerian prince scam seem believable. 

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You Should Go to the Ball, Madame Vice President

Every presidential candidate in the last 40 years has accepted the invitation to the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in NYC. The white-tie fundraiser for Catholic charities—named for New York State’s 42nd governor—is meant to be a rare moment of levity and unity in an otherwise cutthroat election season, where political rivals give each other a good-natured ribbing. 

Surely it’s a dream ticket for the candidate famous for her laugh and keen to spread joy? Apparently not. Kamala Harris has declined the invitation, with her aides saying she is too focused on battleground states to find the time. That’s the political equivalent of saying, “I’m washing my hair that night.” 

But skipping the party is a mistake. Harris’s absence reinforces her image as over-rehearsed, tightly controlled, and unable to think on her feet. Trump called the decision to skip the upcoming dinner “sad but not surprising.” 

As well as being a tactical mistake, it’s also a regrettable move for the country. In divided times, we need events like this more than ever. At the 2016 Al Smith dinner, Trump and Hillary Clinton showed they could take jokes on the chin. Unsurprisingly, Trump went too far, saying Clinton was “corrupt” and merely “pretending not to hate Catholics.” But when he got nasty, the audience booed. As the motto for D.C.’s annual Gridiron Dinner goes: “Singe, don’t burn.” It’s a similar policy at the Al Smith dinner, where the goal is to humanize politics with a dose of humor. 

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic archbishop of New York, said he was “disappointed” by Harris’s snub, adding that she “speaks very much about the high ideals about how it’s good to get away from division and come together in unity and all. That’s what the Al Smith dinner is all about.” He’s right. Madame Vice President, the battleground states can wait. 

Madeleine Kearns is an associate editor for The Free Press. Follow her on X @madeleinekearns. 

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