Fact Check: Old video of Kamala Harris shared as first campaign ad after US Prez Biden withdraws re-election bid

Hyderabad: In an unexpected turn of events on July 21, US president Joe Biden announced his decision to withdraw from the upcoming Presidential election in November this year amid growing calls for exit from his Democratic party. He expressed full confidence in vice president Kamala Harris, endorsing her as the Democratic party candidate for the presidency.

In this context, a purported campaign ad video of Kamala Harris for the upcoming Presidential election is making rounds on social media, with claims that it is her first campaign video against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

The video shows Harris criticising Trump, labelling him a sex predator who operated for-profit scam colleges and accused him of dividing the country. In contrast, Harris presents herself as the ‘anti-Trump’ who aims to bring the nation together.

Sharing the video, a user on X wrote, “First official campaign ad for Kamala Harris for President! Pass it on…” (Archive)

Another X user shared the video with the caption, “Go, Kamala! The first Harris ad it out.”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false, as the video is from 2019. Moreover, while Harris has received endorsements from Biden and numerous Democratic Congress members, governors and officials, she has not yet been officially nominated as the party’s Presidential candidate.

We conducted a keyword search and found a report by The New York Times published on July 22. The report stated that after President Biden stepped out of the Presidential race, a majority of Democrats in Congress and nearly half of the country’s Democratic governors announced their endorsement for vice president Kamala Harris to fill in Biden’s shoes.

However, according to a BBC report on July 22, it is not yet a done deal. Delegates will vote next month at the Democratic National Convention to officially confirm who will replace Biden and the candidate for vice president.

Further, upon conducting a reverse image search of the campaign video’s keyframe, we found it posted by Harris on X on November 21, 2019. “I prosecuted sex predators. Trump is one. I shut down for-profit scam colleges. He ran one. I held big banks accountable. He’s owned by them. I’m not just prepared to take on Trump, I’m prepared to beat him,” read the caption.

We also found a HuffPost report dated July 22, which noted that one of vice president Kamala Harris’ old Presidential campaign videos is gaining attention after Biden withdrew his 2024 candidacy. The report mentioned that Harris originally made the video during her 2020 Democratic nomination bid, highlighting her achievements as a prosecutor to draw a sharp contrast with Donald Trump.

Newsweek wrote about the video in November 2019 in an article titled “Kamala Harris Calls Trump a ‘Sex Predator’ in New 2020 Campaign Ad.” The article mentioned that Harris, a senator from California at the time and a contender for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, had released a campaign advertisement calling then-President Donald Trump a ‘sex predator.’

Hence, we conclude that Kamala Harris’s video calling Trump a sex predator is from 2019, and is not her first campaign ad video against Trump, released a day after Biden withdrew his nomination and endorsed her candidacy instead. The claim is false.