This week was a fairly typical Iowa Press program except there were follow up questions and challenges because their guest was a Democrat for a change.

The prize for worst lead in to a question in this episode came from Erin Murphy who said, “..obviously, former president Trump is popular here and democratic president Biden is not..” Followed by a pointed question as to how this was going to likely negatively affect Democratic down ticket races.

What about the 759,061 Iowans that voted for Biden for president? Do we count for nothing? If you are looking for nuance, do not watch Iowa Press.

House Democratic leader Jennifer Konfrst gave a great answer. You might actually sort of enjoy watching this episode. Not because of the Iowa Press panel’s superficial horse race questions, but because Konfrst did a fantastic job providing information counter to the program’s Republican leaning ways.

To be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with challenging an answer. It’s just that it has to be equal. I’ve never seen the panel interrupt, talk over, or challenge Republican guests.  I counted four times that Murphy interrupted Konfrst.

One of the interruptions was to say he expected she was going to mention the abortion issue, because he said it is also a federal issue that could impact state elections. She had to school him on just exactly why this is in fact an issue currently in the state of Iowa to women who are interested in reproductive freedom including in vitro fertilization.  This was a frustrating exchange but she came out on top of hostile, uninformed questioning. It starts at about 21:00.

If you are new here and haven’t read my many reviews of the Iowa Press program, type “Iowa Press” in the search box.

Have a great Monday!