CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale delivered a brutal, eight-part takedown of the @KamalaHQ X account, which has been named as the Vice President’s official rapid response account, noting that it had “made a habit of misleadingly clipping and inaccurately captioning video clips to attack former President Donald Trump.”
“Fact check: Harris campaign social media account has repeatedly deceived with misleading edits and captions,” the headline read, noting that the account then blasted those misleading edits out to more than 1.3 million followers on X, formerly Twitter.
From the CNN article:
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.
Dale then laid out a series of eight examples of the @KamalaHQ account doing just that.
In the first case, they edited video of Trump to make it appear as though he had forgotten where he was.
Trump: Would that be okay, North Carolina?
(He is in Pennsylvania) pic.twitter.com/TcymR609Rg
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 17, 2024
But the full video of that Pennsylvania rally showed that there was a small group of attendees who were there from North Carolina — and that Trump, aware of that, pointed them out several times throughout the rally and referred to that section of the audience as “North Carolina” when he did so.
The @KamalaHQ account made a similar post last week, claiming again that Trump had forgotten what state he was in. This time, unedited footage showed that he was clearly referencing the migrant crisis affecting Pennsylvania during a rally in Arizona.
Trump: “Pennsylvania, remember this when you have to go to vote”
(He is in Arizona) pic.twitter.com/lMEJwwvQ3I
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 12, 2024
A third example from @KamalaHQ showed a clip of Trump, claiming he was saying “nothing was done wrong” in Charlottesville in 2017. The full video showed Trump clearly stating that he was not referring to the neo-Nazis or the counterprotestors who killed Heather Heyer, but to his own comment about there being “fine people on both sides” — which he and numerous outlets, CNN included, have said did not include white nationalists.
Trump says “nothing was done wrong” in Charlottesville in 2017 when neo-Nazis chanted “Jews will not replace us” and killed an innocent woman pic.twitter.com/rQEuzPp3KP
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 13, 2024
“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,” Trump said. “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.”
And while Harris’ campaign did not respond to CNN on the first two examples, they did attempt to defend the Charlottesville reference.
“He’s saying he did ‘nothing wrong’ in relation to him saying ‘very fine people’ who did what is described in the tweet,” the campaign said in an email.
A fourth example showed the account deceptively editing a comment from vice presidential candidate and Senator JD Vance (R-OH) regarding veterans’ health care.
Q: Would you consider privatizing veterans health care?
Vance: I think I’d consider it pic.twitter.com/wmjJq59vNJ
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 12, 2024
When asked whether he’d consider privatizing health care for veterans, @KamalaHQ claimed that he responded, “I think he’d consider it.”
“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.”
Harris’ campaign also pushed back on this fact-check, claiming that they never said he meant to privatize everything. But as Dale noted, they still cut off the video before he explained exactly what he intended to “consider,” suggesting that the privatization of all veterans’ care was the only thing on the table.
Dale outlined four additional examples, each of which involved @KamalaHQ either posting video clips without relevant context or overtly mischaracterizing things that Trump said in order to attack him.
