2024-09-12 01:35:21
The United States is behind the first and closely watched debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris. Journalist and former CNN reporter Tomáš Etzler evaluates who was more persuasive and how the duel can affect the November presidential election in the new podcast American Dream. And it also explains why Trump was furious or what a huge risk the US is facing.
Check out the first episode of the American Dream podcast. You can also listen to it in all podcast apps. | Video: Jakub Novák
“I was surprised by both of them. I was worried about how Harris would handle speaking without paper when she didn’t have a pre-written script. She did it very well,” says Etzler, who has worked in the United States for years. “Trump was as we know him. He lied and attacked. But compared to his other appearances, he spoke consistently,” he adds.
The journalist agrees with the prevailing assessment of the American media that Harris was better and better addressed the undecided voters. For example, even the conservative Wall Street Journal called the Democratic candidate the winner of the duel. “They say that televised debates are no longer decisive in elections, but given that this one was apparently the only one, it can have a great influence,” Tomáš Etzler judges in the first episode of the new podcast Aktuálně.cz, The American Dream.
You can listen to The American Dream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other apps:
The former correspondent for CNN and Czech Television also commented on Trump’s refusal to answer two questions from an ABC television presenter about whether he wished Ukraine to win the war with Russia. “His position reflects the opinion of many Americans and Trump voters that America is giving too much money to Ukraine,” the journalist said. According to him, in reality, few Americans are interested in what is happening outside the country’s borders, and he believes that roughly eighty percent of the US population would have trouble finding Ukraine on a map.
Etzler is among those who consider popular singer Taylor Swift’s declaration of support for Kamala Harris a big plus for the Democratic candidate. “Swift is a huge phenomenon, she has over 280 million followers on Instagram. It can influence young voters,” he judges, adding that some white American men will have a problem with the possible election of Kamala Harris as president and that the Democrat needs to win over on election day many women’s voices.
In this regard, Etzler points out that Trump appointed very conservative judges to the Supreme Court during his presidency. In 2022, they participated in the annulment of an earlier ruling that guaranteed American women the right to abortion.
“This will blow up in his face. Trump has repeatedly bragged that he was the one who overturned this verdict. For many American women, this is a huge problem,” the journalist points out about one of the important topics of the American elections. “Harris spoke brilliantly about this matter in the debate, she completely trampled Trump on it,” he adds, referring to the ultra-conservative Christian currents in the USA as the “American Taliban”.
In the podcast, Etzler also talks about the resistance of the American system against attempts to create an authoritarian regime, which, in his opinion, Trump will attempt if he is elected. He openly warns against the efforts of some American conservatives to move the United States from a secular republic to a theocracy.
In an almost hour-long interview, Etzler recalls his beginnings in the USA, when he worked, for example, at a car wash and often changed his place of residence and job. He goes back to the era of President George W. Bush and calls his decision to invade Iraq a fatal mistake, the consequences of which are felt by America and the whole world to this day.
In the early 1990s, he left the Czech Republic and went to the United States, where he made a living as a window washer, gardener or bartender for years. In 1999, he joined the CNN television station, at first he drove the crews to the filming and also drove them to get pizza, but he soon worked his way up to the position of editor, elite war reporter and producer. He also worked as a permanent foreign correspondent for Czech Television in China for seven years. Sixty-one-year-old Tomáš Etzler has been nominated for various television awards for his reporting for CNN, and in 2008 he became the first Czech to win an American Emmy Award. He wrote two books about his work in China, and also made a feature-length documentary film, Heaven, which tells the story of contemporary China through an orphanage in a small northern Chinese village.
Photo: Jakub Plíhal