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Former Obama Speechwriter Jon Favreau Mocks Media For Calling Kamala Harris 'Moderate'

© REUTERS / Carolyn KasterDemocratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden's running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., looks up as she signs required documents for receiving the Democratic nomination for President and Vice President of the United States in Wilmington, Del., Friday, Aug. 14, 2020
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden's running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., looks up as she signs required documents for receiving the Democratic nomination for President and Vice President of the United States in Wilmington, Del., Friday, Aug. 14, 2020 - Sputnik International
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Since announced as Joe Biden's running mate, Kamala Harris has been named by several media outlets, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Economist, as either "moderate" or "centrist".

Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for Barack Obama, ridiculed media outlets for posing Joe Biden's running mate Kamala Harris as "moderate" in an episode of podcast "Pod Save America".

"It was hilarious to me that she's being called, in all this coverage, a 'moderate,' like Joe Biden has found a fellow moderate or centrist. She supports something extremely close to 'Medicare for All,' which Bernie Sanders acknowledged in his statement supporting her. She's for the Green New Deal. She has one of the most liberal records in the US Senate," Favreau, one of the podcast hosts, said.

He suggested that calling Harris "moderate" is akin to "moving [the] Overton window", sarcastically taunting that "supporting the Green New Deal and basically Medicare for All is now moderate and centrist", enthusiastically adding, "Fantastic, I'll take it".

Both Medicare for All and the Green New Deal are considered to be, as some politicians would categorize it, "progressive", while others have slammed them as "extreme left" and "socialist". Most Democratic lawmakers support the environmental and healthcare movements, while Republicans oppose them.

"The Democratic Party’s leftward shift since the 2016 presidential election is undeniable... [] Candidates are discussing Supreme Court expansion, reparations, single-payer health care, and free college — in addition to the Green New Deal. Even Biden’s seemingly moderate campaign is more liberal than any of his previous runs for office in his 50-year political career", said Astead W. Herndon, a NYT national political reporter, in elaborating on Democrats leaning to the left.

Favreau's sarcasm was caused by several publications in US media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and others. The NYT suggested that Harris is "a pragmatic moderate who spent most of her career as a prosecutor", with descriptions like "a natural centrist" from The Economist and "relatively centrist" from the Associated Press.

Though admitting that Biden's VP pick is "not the most moderate" pick, The Washington Post claimed that Harris is "far less liberal than [Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth] Warren or [Vermont] Sen. Bernie Sanders", responding to US President Donald Trump calling her "just about the most liberal person in US Senate". 

This remark by Trump was illustrated by GovTrack website data showing Harris, who has posed herself as a “progressive prosecutor" during the Biden-Harris campaign, the most liberal member of US Senate in 2019.

The first black woman to become a California Senator and the state's Attorney General, Kamala Harris accepted Joe Biden's invitation to be his running mate on Tuesday, instantly receiving criticism and taunts from Trump.

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