Right from her opening statement in the Pence–Harris vice-presidential debate, Joe Biden’s running mate started lying. USA Today, whose reporter Susan Page moderated the debate, has thoughtfully published the transcript of the debate. So let’s take a look at the specifics as provided by Sen. Kama-lie … er … Kamala Harris herself.
Lie No. 1: On the virus, Harris said,
“The president said it was a hoax.”
False. What Trump said, exactly, was this:
“Now, the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus,” and, “One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.’ That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. And this is their new hoax.”
One fact-check site after another has said the charge is false. Here, for example, is “Check Your Fact” which says clearly:
Trump referred to the alleged “politicizing” of the coronavirus by Democrats as “their new hoax.” He did not refer to the coronavirus itself as a hoax. Throughout the speech, Trump reiterates his administration is taking the threat of the coronavirus seriously.
Lie No. 2: On fracking, Harris said,
“Alright, so first of all, I will repeat, and the American people know, that Joe Biden will not ban fracking. That is a fact. That is a fact.”
False. During a CNN Democratic debate in July, CNN’s Dana Bash specifically asked Biden,
“Would there be any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in a Biden administration?”
Biden’s answer:
“No, we would work it out,” Biden said. “We would make sure it is eliminated and no more subsidies for either one of those. Any fossil fuel.”
On January 24, 2020, there was this Biden exchange with a New Hampshire voter:
Voter: “But like, what about, say, stopping fracking?”
Biden: “Yes.”
And then there is Harris herself. Saying this in a September 2019 town hall:
“There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.”
Lie No. 3: On abolishing a White House pandemic office, Harris said,
There is a weird obsession that President Trump has had with getting rid of whatever accomplishment was achieved by President Obama and Vice President Biden. For example, they created, within the White House, and office that basically was just responsible for monitoring pandemics. They got away, they got rid of it.
The director of this office, Tim Morrison, responded with an op-ed in the Washington Post that was headlined this way:
No, the White House didn’t ‘dissolve’ its pandemic response office. I was there.
Morrison wrote,
It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Washington Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, “dissolved the office” at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness. Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious.
Lie No. 4: Harris said this on filling a Supreme Court vacancy:
“I’m so glad we went through a little history lesson. Let’s do that a little more,” Harris responded. “In 1864 … Abraham Lincoln was up for reelection. And it was 27 days before the election. And a seat became open on the United States Supreme Court. Abraham Lincoln’s party was in charge not only of the White House but the Senate. But Honest Abe said, ‘It’s not the right thing to do. The American people deserve to make the decision about who will be the next president of the United States, and then that person will be able to select who will serve on the highest court of the land.’ ”
No less than the Washington Post did its homework on Harris’s “history lesson” and headlined this:
Kamala Harris’s ‘little history lesson’ about Lincoln’s Supreme Court vacancy wasn’t exactly true
Lie No. 5: On Trump and white supremacy Harris said,
“the President of the United States took the debate stage in front of 70 million Americans and refused to condemn white supremacists.”
False. The transcript of that Trump–Biden debate has this exchange between moderator Chris Wallace and Trump, which shows Trump did exactly condemn white supremacists:
Wallace: — and other left-wing extremist groups. But are you willing, tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups
Trump: Sure.
And as noted over at NewsBusters there is this headline:
19 Times Donald Trump Has Denounced White Supremacy
The story features videos of Trump repeatedly denouncing white supremacy.
Lie No. 6: Harris repeated the long-debunked lie of Charlottesville:
He, on the issue of Charlottesville, where people were peacefully protesting the need for racial justice, where a young woman was killed and on the other side there were neo-Nazis carrying tiki torches shouting racial epithets, anti-Semitic slurs. And Donald Trump, when asked about it, said there were fine people on both sides.
This lie has long been debunked. The headline at RealClearPolitics:
Trump Didn’t Call Neo-Nazis ‘Fine People.’ Here’s Proof.
So what do we have here? What we have is Harris’s vivid, repeated habit of looking the camera and the American people right straight in the eye and lying. Worse, lying about things that are easily shown to be blatant lies.
Which is to say, Kamala might easily be called something else:
Kama-lie.