More than any time in history, the Democratic Party has spent the last eight years warning that politics runs the risk of being contaminated by the foul specter of “misinformation and disinformation.” Anyone conversant with politics knows “misinformation and disinformation” have long been synonymous with political campaigns from candidates of all backgrounds, but the Harris-Walz campaign wants to criminalize political differences.
In 2019, then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris promised the NAACP that she will “hold social media platforms accountable” if they “act as a megaphone for misinformation.” But if she did that, Harris might turn her own campaign into a federal case. She has frequently been guilty of what the head of her proposed federal disinformation board, Nina Jankowicz, called “information laundering”: repeating lies in a prominent political or media outlet. As we have noted, ABC News moderators let at least 10 Kamala Harris lies slide at her (apparently only) debate with Donald Trump on September 10, many of which she had made in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention and some of which the party had enshrined in the 2024 Democratic Party platform. Here are a few more:
1. Pro-Life Laws ‘Kill Women’
Harris has long claimed that “Trump abortion bans” kill women, and she recently felt invigorated that she had found one — in a swing state, no less. But the facts cannot hold the weight of her fact-defying narrative. The mother, 28-year-old Amber Thurman, died from the side effects of the abortion pill and medical negligence — perhaps reinforced by media misinformation about abortion “bans.”
Thurman ingested the two-drug chemical abortion cocktail of mifepristone and misoprostol but, as they frequently do, the pills failed to expel all of her aborted babies’ body parts from her womb. As she went into sepsis — alone, in her home, with no help from anyone in the industry — she sought medical care for her incomplete miscarriage. The standard of care would call for a dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure to remove her deceased children’s remaining fetal tissue. As one witness boldly testified to the U.S. Senate recently, no pro-life law in the nation prevents women from receiving appropriate care for a miscarriage, including a D&C.
Yet the media and Democratic politicians, Kamala Harris foremost among them, lie that pro-life protections bar doctors from administering emergency care. Doctors may be confused by these narratives and refuse to provide lifesaving care after a miscarriage, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy based on misinformation, disinformation, and unwarranted support for the abortion cartel.
It’s impossible to know for sure what would have happened if these states had managed to enact pro-life protections for unborn babies at all stages — including the abortion pill cartel’s often-illegal activities trafficking chemical abortion agents into pro-life states, efforts facilitated by the Biden-Harris administration and its blue state allies. But one can make an educated guess. If red states had abortion pill bans, Amber Thurman would be alive today, anticipating what it will feel like to hold her baby. Today, she’s a victim of the abortion industry’s neglect and the Democratic presidential candidate’s lies and distortions on its behalf.
2. Springfield Bomb Threats
After former President Donald Trump and his running mate Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) reported Haitian migrants harming resident of Springfield, the media blamed them for a string of bomb threats against the city, especially its “migrant” population.
“Trump and Vance are still stoking fears of Haitian migrants, as Ohio community faces bomb threats,” claimed the Associated Press. “Vance continues fueling false rumors about migrants in Ohio as community receives threats,” said PBS (at your expense). “Bomb Threats Don’t Stop J.D. Vance From Attacking Immigrants in Ohio Town,” charged Rolling Stone.
As it turned out, all of those were “hoaxes,” said the state’s anti-Trump governor. “So 33 threats, 33 hoaxes,” summarized Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) on September 16. “None of them have panned out. We have people, unfortunately, overseas who are taking these actions. Some of them are coming from one particular country,” although he refused to specify which country made dozens of threats against the citizens of his state (as well as the tens of thousands of Haitians currently resident there). Multiple media reports, sometimes citing U.S. government whistleblowers, indicate that Iran has attempted to organization assassination plots against Trump and clearly wants Harris to remain in office.
Yet Harris continued to baselessly blame the bomb threats on “hateful rhetoric” from Trump and Vance, whom she claimed are “spewing lies … grounded in tropes.” Likewise, PBS twisted the governor’s explanation in a taxpayer-funded misinformation headline stating, “Springfield facing threats from overseas after Trump’s lies about Haitians, Ohio governor’s office says.”
Taking matters to their logical extension, a Haitian immigrant group known as the Haitian Bridge Alliance has demanded officials arrest Trump and Vance for allegedly having “wreaked havoc” against the “Haitian community” in Springfield. The group has received more than $1 million from the Open Society Foundations, a nonprofit founded by George Soros.
3. J.D. Vance: School Shootings Are ‘a Fact of Life’
During a September 5 speech, J.D. Vance addressed the issue of school shootings. “If these psychos are going to go after our kids, we’ve got to be prepared for it. We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it. I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” he said. He went on to say that would-be psycho killers “realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”
That’s an entirely mainstream message: For all the Left’s insistence that federal funding must turn public schools into “safe spaces,” it never wants to spend a dime improving students’ physical safety. Statistics show that schools which end their status as a “gun-free” zone are incredibly safe. Only a vast distortion of his message could make it controversial.
Enter the Associated Press. Within hours, the AP targeted Vance, posting a social media message claiming, “JD Vance says school shootings are a ‘fact of life,’ calls for better security.” After backlash, AP replaced that post with a placeholder message (although the headline is still on AP’s website) — but the original message had served its purpose, which is to let the Harris-Walz campaign repeat the inaccurate reporting, as they did. The campaign released a statement distorting that quotation and another from Trump saying America has to deal with its grief and go on. Walz recycled the falsehood in a September 22 rally in Pennsylvania, claiming the Republican candidates “want to tell you that [you should] just get over it, it’s a fact of life. This is the way it is.”
4. Trump Called for ‘Execution’ of the Central Park Five, Who Were Later Found Innocent
Kamala Harris has repeatedly foisted another blood libel on Donald Trump, claiming he called on police to execute innocent teens of minority backgrounds for allegedly raping a Central Park jogger in 1989. At their presidential debate, Harris instructed her audience, “Let’s remember, this is the same individual who took out a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for the execution of five young black and Latino boys who were innocent, the Central Park Five — took out a full-page ad calling for their execution.”
Nearly everything in that statement is false. In response to the brutal rape and beating of a woman jogging through Central Park in 1989, Trump took out a full-page ad in a number of newspapers, including the Times and the New York Daily News, attacking soft-on-crime policies … but he said nothing about executing the Central Park Five.
Trump’s ad called on city officials to protect “New York families — White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian” — against street thugs and “murderers.” And, “when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes,” he declared. “We must cease our continuous pandering to the criminal element of this city.”
Moreover, the notion that the “wilding” youths were innocent is underwhelming. As columnist Ann Coulter noted in a column that deserves to be read in its entirety:
“Four of The Five gave videotaped confessions, at least three of them in the presence of parents or guardians. Defense attorneys spent weeks attacking the confessions as ‘coerced,’ but two multicultural juries and the trial judge concluded that the confessions were voluntary.”
Additional evidence implicates members of the crowd even after another individual gave his own confession.
5. Bailing Violent Criminals Out of Jail Is ‘Misinformation’
Despite posting the words on social media, Kamala Harris has claimed that ties to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which bailed out 2020 BLM rioters who went on to commit other crimes.
“I am the child of parents who marched for civil rights,” the “middle-class” kid began, “and I will always be and will always be a supporter of peaceful protests.” She called the allegations another example of “misinformation and disinformation” in an October 2022 interview with WCCO-4, the CBS affiliate in Minneapolis. WCCO tailored a “fact-check” story, not on whether Harris ever promoted the group, but instead noting carefully that “Despite Trump claim and 2020 tweet showing support, Harris never donated to Minnesota Freedom Fund,” a story subsequently updated days after Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.
This is a rare case of double disinformation. Of course, the BLM riots in Minneapolis, the nation, and the world as a whole were far from peaceful. Violent BLM riots claimed 19 lives — including 77-year-old retired St. Louis police officer David Dorn, whose widow endorsed Trump — and caused at least$2 billion in property damage.
But Harris did, in fact, support bailing out rioters. On June 1, 2020, Kamala Harris posted a message to her followers on social media, stating, “If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.” The tweet remains on her timeline. She later called the deadly riots “an essential component of evolution in our country, as an essential component or mark of a real democracy.”
Arguably, the story makes CBS News and Kamala Harris look worse. Trump never claimed Harris personally donated; he said she “helped” bail out Shawn Michael Tillman, who had been jailed for gross indecent exposure and went on to murder a man after the Harris-endorsed fund bailed him out. The fact that Harris did not personally support the cause while encouraging her followers to do so could arguably make her seem insincere or hypocritical.
6. J.D. Vance’s Erotic Dalliance with a Couch
The Walz-Harris campaign engaged in “information laundering” with a coarse internet statement self-consciously offered as an internet lie.
Shortly after his selection as her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) targeted J.D. Vance. “I can’t wait to debate the guy — that is, if he’s willin’ to get off the couch and show up,” said Walz with evident self-satisfaction. “Ya see what I did there?” he said, in case anyone missed it.
He referred to a July 15 social media post from an online account created the day Trump announced Vance as his running mate, with the handle @rxckrxdxscxlvxs (Rick Rude’s calves). The anonymous poster said he “can’t say for sure but he might be the first vp pick to have admitted in a ny times bestseller to f****** an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions (vance, hillbilly elegy, pp. 179-181).” He later posted a meme exposing his previous post as a lie.
No such citation exists in the book.
The Associated Press branded the story false in a fact-check — but then pulled the story, allegedly because editors felt it did not meet their editorial standards. But Snopes.com has rated the story “False” (while helpfully including a section asking, “Why is this rumor so believable?”). Walz opposition research team undoubtedly knew the story was fallacious. But like certain rumors contained in the Russian dossier about Donald Trump (rumors paid for by the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign), the rumors served their purpose.
7. ‘We Are Not Taking Anybody’s Guns Away’
During the presidential debate on September 10, Harris stated, “Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We are not taking anybody’s guns away.”
But at a joint campaign appearance with Walz in Philadelphia on August 6, Kamala Harris promised, “Together, when we win in November, we are finally going to pass universal background checks, red flag laws, and an ‘assault weapons’ ban.” Red flag laws allow law enforcement to remove firearms from the homes of legal gun owners without due process. The controversial laws, which both candidates have supported, take guns away from law-abiding Americans who purchased their firearms lawfully after receiving a report — possibly from an abusive ex, a jealous neighbor, or a local thief — that the individual poses a threat to himself or others. A so-called “assault weapons ban” would prevent Americans from purchasing such weapons. Harris has promised to support a “mandatory buy-back” for guns possessed lawfully.
Production of “Modern Sporting Rifles” (such as AR-15s and AK-47s) increased 32% between 2020 and 2021, bringing the total number produced since 1990 to 28.1 million, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Americans own an estimated 473.2 million firearms.
8. Trump Promised a ‘Bloodbath’
Harris has accused Trump of another blood libel, claiming he will lead another violent revolution against the government.
The comment came as Trump spoke near Dayton, Ohio, promising to “put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across” the border from Mexico, some of them built by Chinese companies. “Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole” automotive industry, Trump continued.
As I wrote at the time at The Washington Stand:
“The term ‘bloodbath’ is regularly used in the financial sector to describe an industrial contraction. The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists one of the definitions of ‘bloodbath’ as ‘a major economic disaster.’ … Democratic campaign operatives pounced on Trump’s use of the term ‘bloodbath’ to insinuate he wanted to foment a blood-drenched revolution if he lost the election. … The [then-]Biden campaign promptly wrenched the president’s remarks out of context to create a digital campaign ad titled ‘Bloodbath,’ which recycles other erroneous statements, such as falsely claiming Trump praised rioters at the Charlottesville and January 6 D.C. riots.”
Despite extensive reporting about the full context of the former president’s remarks, Harris attacked Trump during their presidential debate, insisting that “Donald Trump the candidate has said in this election there will be a bloodbath, if the outcome of this election is not to his liking.”
9. Trump Said There Were ‘Very Fine People’ in Charlottesville’s ‘Unite the Right’ Rally
Joe Biden claimed he decided to launch his third presidential bid because of Trump’s response to Charlottesville. The 2024 Democratic Party platform contains a reference to the remarks. And Kamala Harris has dredged up the comments, telling viewers of the presidential debate to “remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing anti-Semitic hate, and what did the president then at the time say? There were ‘fine people’ on each side.”
In reality, President Donald Trump began his remarks by condemning “some very bad people” in that group. “But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides,” Trump continued. “And I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly,” because they were “protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee.” Trump went on to declare the Woke mob would not stop at destroying statutes of Confederate heroes but would come for George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others.
He went on to establish a 1776 Commission, which proposed erecting a series of monuments depicting historic Americans heroes, which the Biden-Harris administration canceled via executive order.
See also The 10 Kamala Harris Lies Moderators Let Slide at the ABC News Debate and Tim Walz’s Lies: The Top 7.
AUTHOR
Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.
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