'Harris campaign social media account has repeatedly deceived with
misleading edits and captions'

<https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/14/politics/fact-check-harris-campaign-social-media/index.html>

'Washington
CNN
—
A social media account run by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has
been repeatedly deceptive.

The @KamalaHQ account, which has more than 1.3 million followers on the
X social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has made a habit of
misleadingly clipping and inaccurately captioning video clips to attack
former President Donald Trump.

The Harris campaign deploys @KamalaHQ as a kind of irreverent attack
dog, using jocular posts to draw attention to controversial, incorrect,
or dubious comments by Trump and his allies. But the account, which the
Harris campaign calls its “official rapid response page,” has itself
made inaccurate comments on multiple occasions.

Below are eight examples of false or misleading video posts from the
account since mid-August, including three from the latter part of this
week. All of them have previously been highlighted by an anonymous
rebuttal account called @KamalaHQLies, which itself has more than
268,000 followers.

‘The algorithm plays a huge part.’ Meet the Gen Z creator making TikToks
for Trump
02:39 - Source: CNN
Misleadingly describing a Trump comment about his supporters

An August 17 post from @KamalaHQ strongly suggested Trump had gotten
confused about what state he was in during an event in Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania. The post said, “Trump: Would that be okay, North Carolina?
(He is in Pennsylvania).” It included a six-second video clip in which
Trump said, while pointing to his left, “Would that be okay, North
Carolina? I don’t think so, right.”

The Harris campaign was explicit about its intentions in the version of
the post it made on the Instagram @KamalaHQ account, saying, “Donald
Trump is lost and confused.”

But Trump was not lost or confused.

The full video of the rally shows that earlier in the speech, Trump had
pointed to the same spot on his left to acknowledge and then speak to a
group of ardent supporters from North Carolina, eventually saying,
“Thank you very much. North Carolina!” Later, in the moment shown by
@KamalaHQ, he pointed to these supporters again and referred to them as
“North Carolina.” He had not forgotten he was speaking in Pennsylvania.

The Harris campaign declined to comment on this @KamalaHQ post.

Deceptively clipping and misleadingly describing a Trump comment about
immigration

On Thursday, the @KamalaHQ account made a new attempt to suggest that
Trump was confused about his location. Its post said, “Trump:
‘Pennsylvania, remember this when you have to go to vote’ (He is in
Arizona).” It included an eight-second clip of Trump saying in a Tucson
speech, “So Pennsylvania, remember this when you have to go to vote,
okay, just remember this: 2,000% increase. This is a small —…”

The Instagram post of this remark, too, was more explicit than the X
post; on Instagram, the Harris campaign added text over top the video
that read, “Trump forgets which state he is in (again).”

But Trump, again, had not forgotten which state he was in.

The extended footage shows that the Harris campaign clipped out critical
context: Trump was talking about immigration, a key topic in Arizona,
and had just read a part of his prepared text about how a small
Pennsylvania town has “experienced a 2,000% increase in the population
of Haitian migrants under Kamala Harris.” He then added, “So
Pennsylvania, remember this when you have to go to vote, okay, just
remember this: 2,000% increase, this is a small town; of all a sudden
they got thousands of people.”

One could try to argue it’s odd for Trump to make a direct appeal to
Pennsylvanians while speaking in Arizona. But Trump’s remarks anywhere
in the country are broadcast to voters everywhere in the country, and,
regardless, @KamalaHQ eliminated the context that would allow people to
develop an informed opinion on this remark.

The Harris campaign declined to comment on this @KamalaHQ post.

CNN visits Ohio town where Trump falsely claimed migrants are eating
pets. Here's what we found
03:13 - Source: CNN
Deceptively clipping and misleadingly describing a Trump comment about
his 2017 Charlottesville remark

A Friday post from @KamalaHQ said, “Trump says ‘nothing was done wrong’
in Charlottesville in 2017 when neo-Nazis chanted ‘Jews will not replace
us’ and killed an innocent woman.” The post included a 10-second clip of
Trump telling reporters at a Friday event in California, “…like on
Project 2025, I have no idea about — had nothing to do with me, he
didn’t correct her, he knew that. Charlottesville — nothing was done
wrong.”

But the full video of Trump’s California comments shows that the Harris
campaign deceptively cut the clip right before Trump made clear he was
not claiming that neo-Nazis in Charlottesville did nothing wrong or that
the murder of innocent Charlottesville counterprotester Heather Heyer
was not wrong.

Rather, the full video shows, he was arguing that he did nothing wrong
with his “very fine people, on both sides” comment in 2017 about the
events in Charlottesville, which he has repeatedly insisted was not
about white nationalists.

Specifically, Trump was complaining that a moderator of the presidential
debate on Tuesday, David Muir of ABC News, did not challenge how Harris
described Trump’s 2017 comments. We say Harris’ debate description of
the 2017 comments was fair, but regardless, Trump was not defending
murder on Friday.

Here is Trump’s full Friday remark, in which he invoked various Fox News
hosts: “I think he (Muir) corrected me 11 times. Of the 11 times, I
don’t think he had the right to correct me at all. Didn’t correct her
once. Like on Project 2025, I have no idea about — had nothing to do
with me, he didn’t correct her, he knew that. Charlottesville — nothing
was done wrong. All you had to do is read my statement one more sentence
and you would’ve seen that. Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Jesse
(Watters), all of them, they — Greg Gutfeld — they all took that and
they corrected it many times. But they keep coming with the same lies.”

Defending the @KamalaHQ post, the Harris campaign said in an email:
“He’s saying he did ‘nothing wrong’ in relation to him saying ‘very fine
people’ who did what is described in the tweet.”

There are two problems with this. The post itself did not acknowledge
that Trump’s “nothing wrong” comment was about his own previous remark.
And while there’s a solid case that this 2017 “very fine people” comment
was about some white nationalists, there’s no basis for claiming it was
about Heyer’s murderer in particular — much less that Trump’s “nothing
wrong” comment on Friday was about this murderer.

Deceptively clipping and inaccurately quoting a JD Vance quote about
veterans’ health care

On Thursday, the @KamalaHQ account posted a nine-second video clip of
Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, speaking in an interview. The
account wrote: “Q: Would you consider privatizing veterans health care?
Vance: I think I’d consider it.”

But Vance did not actually say “I think I’d consider it.” A close listen
to the clip reveals Vance actually said “I think I’d consider — and…”
And because @KamalaHQ clipped out the critical comments he made after
the “and,” the Harris campaign didn’t allow people to immediately learn
just what Vance said he would consider.

The extended Vance quote shows he said he would consider giving veterans
greater flexibility to use private health care but that he does not want
to eliminate federal health care provided by the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA). A public-private combination for veterans’ care was the
general approach taken by President Barack Obama and then by Trump; it’s
certainly not without critics, but it’s much less contentious than the
idea of a total privatization.

Here’s the full Vance quote:

“I think I’d consider — and Donald Trump was really good at this,
doesn’t get enough credit for this particular innovation — giving
veterans more choice. Right? So let’s say you’re in a rural hospital.
Your closest VA is 120 miles away. Why force a veteran to drive
two-and-a-half hours to that VA facility when he can get cheaper and
good care right in his backyard? Right? So I do think that we ought to
open up choice and optionality for veterans. You know, I think that
there is areas where the VA actually works very well, so I wouldn’t say
get rid of the whole thing. I would say give people more choice, I think
you’ll save money in the process, you’ll also give veterans a lot more
optionality.”

The Harris campaign defended the @KamalaHQ post. It argued in its email,
“Vance is suggesting he would consider privatizing VA functions. This is
not misleading. Our caption does not say ‘the whole VA health system.’”

But the Harris campaign did not address the caption’s “consider it”
misquote or explain why it cut the clip before people could hear Vance
explain what he would “consider.” And if the Harris campaign wanted to
claim Vance was talking about possibly privatizing certain VA
“functions,” as it said in the email, it could have said that in the
post rather than at very least leaving open the impression he was
talking about privatizing the whole VA.