• Former President and convicted felon Donald Trump took to the main stage at the National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention in Chicago for a question and answer session. The decision of event organizers to feature Trump was highly divisive, leading one of the association’s co-chairs to step down and multiple featured speakers to cancel their appearances. When the interview began, Trump wasted no time in disrespecting the Black women journalists on stage with him and questioning Vice President Kamala Harris’s Black and South Asian identity. For an insider’s perspective on the lead-up to and aftermath of Trump’s Q-and-A session, we spoke with Ameshia Cross, Political Analyst for Sirius XM and frequent guest on MSNBC.
• And in headlines: Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, Israel kills Hezbollah commander and several others in Beirut airstrike, at least 11 people have died in protests of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, and the Paris Olympics becomes “Fear Factor” as triathletes dive into the Seine River.

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TRANSCRIPT

Priyanka Aribindi: It’s Thursday, August 1st. I’m Priyanka Aribindi. 

Juanita Tolliver: And I’m Juanita Tolliver and this is What a Day. The show where we’re having a better day than Olympic triathletes who had to swim 1500 meters in Paris’s famously filthy Seine River. 

Priyanka Aribindi: We here at What a Day are sending our thoughts, prayers, and most potent antibiotics to these brave–

Juanita Tolliver: Right. 

Priyanka Aribindi: –Olympians. Oh my God. 

Juanita Tolliver: Yeah. Take those antibiotics now, because it takes a few days for the infection to really set into your system. [laughing] [music break]

Priyanka Aribindi: On today’s show, Israel continues to wage war in Lebanon and is being linked to an attack in Iran that killed a Hamas political leader. Plus, more exciting news from the Paris Olympics. 

Juanita Tolliver: But first, on Wednesday, former president and convicted felon Donald Trump took to the main stage at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention in Chicago for a question and answer session with Rachel Scott of ABC news, Semaphor’s Kadia Goba, and Harris Faulkner of Fox News. In the lead up to the interview, there was tension surrounding the NABJ’s decision to allow Trump to take the stage, as convention co-chair Karen Attiah stepped down from her role in protest, and multiple featured speakers canceled their appearances at the convention. Meanwhile, other journalists expressed their support for NABJ leadership’s commitment to featuring Trump as he is a presidential candidate and inviting top presidential candidates is a long standing tradition for the organization. Still, when the interview started, Trump wasted no time in disrespecting the Black women journalists on stage and Vice President Kamala Harris, including questioning Harris’s Black and South Asian identity. But in the middle of Trump’s ranting and raving, he did have this to say about his running mate, JD Vance. 

[clip of unspecified NABJ speaker] When you look at J.D. Vance, is he ready on day one? 

[clip of Donald Trump] Does he what?

[clip of unspecified NABJ speaker] Ready on day one, if he has to be. 

[clip of Donald Trump] I’ve always had great respect for him and for the other candidates too. But I will say this and I think this is well documented. Historically, the vice president, in terms of the election does not have any impact. I mean, virtually no impact. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Okay. I will say he said some very disgusting things right from the top, like really right out of the gate. But he also failed to answer almost every single other question. But this one? No, he answered, he gave an answer. It’s very clear what he thinks about this man. 

Juanita Tolliver: Absolutely nothing. He thinks nothing of J.D. Vance. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yeah. 

Juanita Tolliver: You’re a throwaway. Got it. Moving on. 

Priyanka Aribindi: He doesn’t mean anything. 

Juanita Tolliver: Also, instead of replaying all of those vile things that Trump had to say about Black women and Black journalists, we’re going to focus our attention on some of the reactions to the Q&A session, including from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Here’s what she had to say from the podium in the White House press briefing room upon hearing some of Trump’s statements about Vice President Harris. 

[clip of Karine Jean Pierre] No one has any right to tell someone who they are, how they identify, that is no one’s right. It is someone’s own decisions. Only she can speak to her experience. Only she can speak to what it’s like. She’s the only person that can do that. And I think it’s insulting for anybody. It doesn’t matter if it’s a former leader, a former president. It is insulting. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Absolutely. It was really appalling just from the beginning of this appearance. I think this will follow him for a long, long time. I don’t know if he thinks it will, but I believe it will. It was really some of the worst things we’ve seen on this campaign so far. 

Juanita Tolliver: Right. I feel like it was the rollout to the racist portion of his reality TV show campaign, and–

Priyanka Aribindi: Absolutely. 

Juanita Tolliver: It is only going to continue to ramp up from here. While addressing the Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority incorporated 60th biennial Boule event in Houston, Texas, Vice President Harris had this to say in response to Trump’s appearance at the NABJ convention. 

[clip of Vice President Kamala Harris] It was the same old show, the divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say, the American people deserve better. The American people deserve better. [applause] The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us. They are an essential source of our strength. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Absolutely. And just to echo what the campaign and what Vice President Harris has said before, we are not going back. 

Juanita Tolliver: Right. To get an insider’s perspective of how Trump’s Q&A session played in the room and how attendees reacted to NABJ’s decision to feature Trump at the convention, I caught up with Ameshia Cross, political analyst for Sirius XM and frequent guest on MSNBC. I started by asking Ameshia about the energy in the room before Trump took to the stage. Given the vocal opposition expressed by NABJ members in the hours since his interview was announced. 

Ameshia Cross: There were literally hundreds of people who were wrapped around the corner for this event. The doors opened officially for registration around 7:30 a.m.. The doors to the actual room did not open until 11, but you had to go through intense amounts of security for obvious reasons, and there was not a seat empty in that room, so there was anticipation. I’m not going to say people were excited. I think that people were wondering why NABJ went through this process to begin with. They were also wondering if Trump would actually answer real questions if he was going to come into a room with actual Black people, not the non-Black people who he filled a Black church in Detroit with but real Black people. 

Juanita Tolliver: That part. 

Ameshia Cross: If he was going to answer questions that matter to our community, especially with an election cycle right on its heels. There were folks who were, quite frankly, upset that they were NABJ dues paying members for years, many of whom had also brought their students here, journalism students. So I was actually in a row with certain journalism students who were asking questions as to why a conference that is set on talking about disinformation would bring the king of disinformation to come and speak to them. So I think those were legitimate questions. But all in all, I think that there were people who were unsure of why this was even happening. There were people who were frustrated with NABJ leadership that he was even allowed to speak here. And there were also folks who were saying, this is a man who has attacked Black journalists, many of whom are actually in this room with us right now. This is a man who has attacked Black communities. This is a man who’s attacked Black cities and Black mayors. Chicago is my hometown. My mayor is Black. He’s targeted Chicago specifically. I think that there was a lot of frustration in that room and confusion as to how NABJ got to that point. 

Juanita Tolliver: Now, throughout the interview, Rachel Scott in particular repeatedly pushed back against Trump’s non-answers and his blatantly disrespectful comments and statements. So how was the crowd reacting to Trump’s responses in real time? 

Ameshia Cross: Lots of boos. A couple of people actually, unfortunately, had to be removed because they were extremely loud in response to some of the things that he was saying. The comparisons between the Gaza protesters, the people who are protesting against the atrocities that are happening there versus the convicted January 6th rioters, saying that those two were quite frankly similar. And questioning why these individuals weren’t also facing criminal penalty. In addition to blaming a lot of things related to um the Black economy on migrants. I think that was the part that really started getting people going. And lastly, um the argument that Democrats want to end pregnancy and basically end motherhood, up to and including at nine months and murdering kids thereafter, that got the most rousing, I think, upset from people, including the immediate former president of NABJ. She was in the front row. She got up and walked out immediately upon that statement. Rachel, unfortunately did exactly what she should have done. The response was unfortunate. Her questions were not. She spoke to, hey, you’ve called the former president in Barack Obama, you spread birtherism. You basically denied that he was actually an American citizen. You’ve made these comments about specific journalists, and she was reading from the quotes that were things that Donald Trump actually said. And he sat there and he was very vitriolic in his response to her, called her nasty, you know, his favorite word when it relates to women. And he would not let up. He attacked her for the entire rest of the forum. But I think one of the things that was also very poignant was that not only did this event start a little over an hour late, the reason was he was in the back with his staffers trying to negotiate out of having PolitiFact fact check him in real time. He did not want to take the stage if PolitiFact was going to fact check him in real time. 

Juanita Tolliver: Hold on. Because what he said on stage was their mics were messed up, their system was broken. So this was about fact checking?

Ameshia Cross: It was about fact checking. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the mics. Everyone in the room could hear completely audibly. And we’re talking a room that had rows that went back 16, 18 deep. Everyone could hear. Donald Trump could definitely hear what was going on. This was not an issue. Donald Trump did not want to admit that he didn’t want fact checking to happen. He said that he didn’t agree to that. It was wild. I honestly don’t know what NABJ leadership expected out of this. 

Juanita Tolliver: Let’s let’s jump to that. Let’s jump to that. So based on how this interview with Trump unfolded, running an hour late, disrespecting Black women, disrespecting Black journalists, disrespecting Vice President Kamala Harris, what do you expect to see from NABJ leadership? What comes next for this organization? 

Ameshia Cross: I think that there are going to be a lot of people that push them to task off of this, because before, it was the anticipation of what Trump might do, what he might say. Now we’ve seen what he was going to do and what he was going to say. He insulted the intelligence of everybody in that room and insulted the Black women on that stage, with the exception of his favorite Fox News host. It’s something that is going to come down on NABJ’s president. He has sent out multiple emails leading up to this event, basically trying to clear up some of the questions that were held online. We know that certain members, many of whom have been vocal, are not going to pay dues anymore. They’re going to leave. You had board leaders actually decide that they were going to leave, there are sponsors who were talking about pulling out. This is not a place, I think, especially in this election cycle and this year where it is okay to be racist full throttle or it is okay to be sexist full throttle. He brought all of that with him to NABJ, in a crowd of Black people, where he clearly did not read the room. 

Juanita Tolliver: One of the things that was reported is that the leadership of the conference was not willing to offer any accommodations to Vice President Kamala Harris to join virtually. How were conference attendees reacting to that choice by NABJ leadership and then their later reversal of that decision, as arrangements are now being made for Vice President Harris to address the dues paying members of NABJ virtually in September. 

Ameshia Cross: They thought that that was unbelievable. Many people in the line were talking about it before they actually went into this event, basically saying that it shouldn’t have happened if Kamala Harris wasn’t also extended some form to be able to appear virtually. In addition to that, that NABJ leadership basically just wanted to have a lot of media hits across multiple platforms, because that’s the only reason why you would platform somebody like Donald Trump. It made no sense. It also made no sense to not accommodate the vice president, acknowledging that she stepped up to being at the top of the ticket a little over a week ago. So this is a very new thing. And she’s also campaigning in battleground states. Her schedule is extremely tight at this point. Any accommodation would have been necessary, but also like to be a nonprofit, to be someone who’s a 501c3 group, to hear from both sides matters. And I think that because there were so many pop shots, for lack of a better term, that Donald Trump took at Kamala Harris on that stage up to and including questions about her race, I think that it’s very important that NABJ not only look intrinsically, but also listen to the voices of their actual members, the voices of journalists who cover this beat and others who quite frankly, thought that this was disrespectful, that it was not only unfortunate, but that there was really a clean up process being done in real time by NABJ because it had already been leaked that they really did not try to accommodate the VP. So coming back 24 hours later, based on the backlash they got from their membership, I think was very interesting and it shows that they had a lack of introspection from the beginning. 

Juanita Tolliver: That was my conversation with Ameshia Cross, political analyst for Sirius XM and frequent guest on MSNBC. And we will keep following this story. As the National Association of Black Journalists prepares to conduct a virtual interview with Vice President Kamala Harris in September. 

Priyanka Aribindi: That is the latest for now. We’ll get to some headlines in just a moment, but if you like our show, please make sure to subscribe and share it with your friends. We’ll be right back after some ads. [music break]

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Priyanka Aribindi: Let’s wrap up with some headlines. 

[sung] Headlines. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Recent military actions in the Middle East have the potential to draw regional powers further into the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed on Wednesday morning in Tehran after attending the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iranian officials see Israel as the obvious culprit. With the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, writing on X that the killing would be met with a, quote, “harsh punishment.” The assassination darkens prospects for a cease fire between Israel and Hamas. Since Haniyeh was deeply involved in those negotiations. In Beirut, Israel carried out an airstrike on Tuesday that killed a top commander of Hezbollah. At least five civilians were also killed and 74 wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Israel claims that the commander was behind the weekend rocket strike on the Israeli occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 children. Since October 7th, Israel has frequently traded low impact strikes back and forth with Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group. But the attacks of the past few days have onlookers concerned that things could escalate into a full blown war. 

Juanita Tolliver: At least 11 people have died in Venezuela during protests against the country’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro, according to the human rights group Foro Penal. Venezuela’s Maduro aligned election authority declared him the winner of elections on Monday, but numerous irregularities have cast doubt on the result. Since Monday’s announcement, researchers associated with the opposition alliance in Venezuela have shared partial election results, which The New York Times confirms shows retired diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez in position to beat Maduro by more than 30 percentage points. On Wednesday, Maduro expressed support for an audit of the election by Venezuela’s Supreme Court. But outside observers have pushed back, saying the court is too closely connected to Maduro. Citing no evidence, Maduro’s regime has described the demonstrations against it as an attempted coup. 

Priyanka Aribindi: The Federal Reserve opted to leave interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, but officials suggested that a long anticipated rate cut could come as soon as September. The fed has kept rates at their current two decade high of around 5.3% since last July, in an effort to bring down inflation. Speaking to reporters after the decision, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that a reduction in rate could happen as soon as September if the central bank continues to see signs that inflation is cooling without major disruptions to the labor market. Asked about the timing of a possible rate cut just months before the presidential election, Powell said, quote, “anything we do before, during or after the election will be based on the data.” He did not add this part of the quote this is me, but like as it should be, this is what people should be doing. 

Juanita Tolliver: And finally, the Paris Olympics became fear factor on Wednesday as triathletes were made to swim in the notoriously disgusting Seine River. Officials in France had spent the equivalent of $1.5 billion cleaning up the Seine ahead of this year’s games, but rainstorms over the weekend nearly thwarted their efforts by dumping sewage into the river and raising bacteria levels so much that the men’s competition scheduled for Tuesday had to be delayed. Thankfully, by Wednesday morning, samples taken from the Seine were passing necessary tests and athletes were able to jump into the inviting brown river. One competitor later said, quote, “it didn’t taste great.” [laughing] 

Priyanka Aribindi: Disgusting. 

Juanita Tolliver: But according to the Wall Street Journal, the water passed the very low bar of not making everyone who swam in it sick. 

Priyanka Aribindi: I don’t know, give it a few days. We do not know that for a fact. But in other Olympics news, the U.S. women’s gymnastics team took home gold on Tuesday, and returning champ Simone Biles celebrated the win with just a tiny side helping of shade. A month ago, former team USA gymnast MyKayla Skinner trashed the current team online, insulting their quote, “talent” and quote, “work ethic” in a since deleted video. After that same team won gold, Biles posted a celebratory photo on Instagram with the caption quote, “lack of talent, lazy Olympic champions.” Last time I checked, it had racked up north of three million likes [?]. [laughter] And wrapping things up, the latest breakout Olympic celebrity is South Korean sharpshooter Kim Ye-Jii. She won silver on Sunday, but she took home the gold for style with her asymmetrical steampunk glasses, pocket dangling stuffed elephant and overall, oh, is this the Olympics vibe? If you haven’t seen, you should Google it. Just an icon. Really. 

Juanita Tolliver: Yeah. From the posture to the hand in the pocket. Top notch casual vibes at the Olympics. I also want to go back to this MyKayla Skinner Simone Biles beef because–

Priyanka Aribindi: Yes. 

Juanita Tolliver: One. Thank you, Simone, for checking her with the gold medal. And two, special shout out to McKayla Maroney. 

Priyanka Aribindi: Yes!

Juanita Tolliver: Who was in the comments like, I feel like I need to apologize to reclaim my first name because she was like, I’m not her. She ain’t me. 

Priyanka Aribindi: I feel really bad for McKayla Maroney, actually, because I’m sure there are some. I mean, there was a person on our team who was like, wait, I thought it was that girl who made the face. Her name is McKayla. No. 

Juanita Tolliver: Nope. 

Priyanka Aribindi: There is another Olympic gymnast, not McKayla Maroney, who is cool, who said this. We like McKayla Maroney. 

Juanita Tolliver: We do. 

Priyanka Aribindi: She’s good in our book. And those are the headlines. 

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Priyanka Aribindi: That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Be grateful that you didn’t have to swim in the Seine [groan] and tell your friends to listen. 

Juanita Tolliver: And if you’re into reading and not just transcripts of Kamala Harris clapping back at Donald Trump like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Juanita Tolliver.

Priyanka Aribindi: I’m Priyanka Aribindi. 

[spoken together] And Simone Biles for president. 

Juanita Tolliver: Okay, one, that baby don’t want that job. 

Priyanka Aribindi: No. 

Juanita Tolliver: Two, she already knows what she’s amazing at. Keep doing your thing and if you don’t want to do that anymore either, chill. [laugh]

Priyanka Aribindi: Maybe we’ll settle for an endorsement. That’s all we need. 

Juanita Tolliver: Right. [laugh] [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Bill Lancz. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. We had production help today from Michell Eloy, Ethan Oberman, Jon Millstein, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our showrunner is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. 

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