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Less than a month after we wrote about a misleading ad that used out-of-context quotes to attack Vice President Kamala Harris on taxes, former President Donald Trump’s campaign has released another anti-Harris ad drawing from the same deceptive political playbook. This time, the campaign used distorted quotes from news outlets to criticize Harris on taxes, illegal immigration and other issues.
For example, the ad shortens a CBS News headline from “Harris vows to keep Biden’s border crackdown” to “Harris vows to keep Biden’s border.” The ad also cites NBC News while making a claim about Harris providing “welfare for illegals,” even though that clipped quote comes from a 6-year-old opinion piece that never mentioned Harris.
In addition, the ad reuses a truncated line from a New York Times article to falsely suggest that Harris seeks “to significantly raise taxes” on all Americans, when the newspaper said that her plan focuses on increasing taxes for very wealthy individuals and corporations — not people making less than $400,000 a year. That’s the same edited quote we wrote about in early October.
Trump’s campaign began running the new 1-minute ad in several states on Oct. 27, according to political ad tracking service AdImpact. A 30-second version, with only some of the misleading quotes, began airing on Oct. 30, and a version in Spanish started running on Nov. 1.
Taxes
While the ad’s narrator says that President Joe Biden and Harris “raised taxes on the middle class,” text on screen says that “Harris is seeking to significantly raise taxes” — a quote that is attributed to the New York Times. But that Aug. 22 article didn’t say that the Biden administration raised taxes on middle-income Americans, nor did it say that Harris wants to raise taxes for all income groups, as the ad’s partial Times quote suggests.
What the Times reported was: “No one making less than $400,000 a year would see their taxes go up under the plan. Instead, Ms. Harris is seeking to significantly raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations.” (See images below.)
As we’ve written, Harris’ economic policy book says she “will make sure no one earning less than $400,000 a year will pay more in taxes” and will “roll back Trump’s tax cuts for the richest Americans.”
Harris proposes raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%; restoring the top individual income tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, which now applies to income above roughly $609,000 for individuals and $731,000 for married couples; increasing the long-term capital gains rate to 28% from 20% for households with annual taxable income of more than $1 million; and taxing unrealized capital gains at death for gains above $5 million for individuals and $10 million for joint filers. She also has said she would eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers, and expand the child tax credit, including a $6,000 credit for newborns.
The Border
The narrator goes on to say that “Kamala was in charge of his open border policies,” while a graphic quotes CBS News as saying, “Harris Vows to Keep Biden’s Border.”
First, Biden doesn’t have an open border policy, and he didn’t put Harris in charge of issues at the U.S. border with Mexico, which is the job of the Department of Homeland Security secretary, as we’ve reported. Harris had a more limited role as the lead on the “Root Causes Strategy,” an effort to “improve security, governance, human rights, and economic conditions” in Central American countries. The strategy included a number of actions designed to “address the root causes of migration” from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, specifically.
Second, the full headline of the Sept. 28 CBS News article cited in the ad said: “Harris vows to keep Biden’s border crackdown: ‘The United States is a sovereign nation.'” (See the images below.)
Contrary to the ad’s suggestion that Harris would embrace “open border policies” as president, the CBS News article went on to say that, during her late September visit to part of the border in Arizona, Harris pledged to keep “Biden’s asylum crackdown in place if elected, solidifying Democrats’ embrace of more stringent immigration rules.”
Migrant Benefits
As the narrator suggests that Biden and Harris are “giving welfare to illegals,” text shown on screen, and attributed to NBC News, says “welfare for illegals.” But those three words were taken from a longer sentence in a March 28, 2018, opinion piece published almost three years before Biden and Harris took office in January 2021. The NBC News piece, which did not mention Biden or Harris, was about how “welfare reform” laws passed during Bill Clinton’s administration can prevent recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals from obtaining professional or commercial licenses needed to get certain jobs.
“Regardless of one’s position on welfare for illegal immigrants, a license is clearly different from food stamps and other government safety nets,” the author wrote.
The opinion article noted that a law that Clinton signed in 1996 prevents “unauthorized immigrants from receiving numerous ‘public benefits,’ unless a state enacts a law that explicitly makes unauthorized immigrants eligible.”
On her campaign website, Harris says that she does support “an earned pathway to citizenship” for people illegally in the country, which would eventually make at least some eligible to receive benefits from federal funded programs. But Harris doesn’t provide details on such a plan, and it’s unclear if it would have sufficient support in Congress to become law.
World Conflicts
The narrator also blames Biden and Harris for the state of international affairs, claiming that “their weakness invited wars.” As the narrator speaks, the words “Global War” appear on screen and are attributed to the news website Axios.
But the full headline of that July 31 article said, “U.S. not ready for global war, commission warns.” The story was about a 100-plus page report from Congress’ Commission on the National Defense Strategy that detailed why the U.S. is not prepared for a potential war with Russia and Ukraine. Axios did not fault the Biden administration for ongoing overseas wars, as the ad could lead viewers to believe.
Harris has called for a ceasefire deal, and the release of hostages, to end the war in Gaza. The vice president also has said that, as president, she “will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies” amid Ukraine’s war with Russia.
Harris’ Agenda
Finally, the narrator claims that “Kamala wants to double down on failure,” while text on the screen says, “Kamala’s Policies ‘Would be the same as Biden’s.’” The ad attributes the line about Harris’ policies to an Oct. 14 Hill story, but the newspaper didn’t say Harris would mirror Biden as president.
Instead, the newspaper was paraphrasing something said by political commentator Chris Matthews. The headline of the Hill article reads: “Chris Matthews: ‘Big mistake’ for Harris to say policies would be the same as Biden’s.”
The story was about comments Matthews made after Harris’ Oct. 8 appearance on ABC’s “The View,” in which Harris said “not a thing that comes to mind” when she was asked if she would have done anything differently than Biden in the last four years. “I think when she says her policies are going to be the same as Biden’s, that’s a big mistake,” Matthews said during an Oct. 14 appearance on MSNBC.
However, Harris didn’t say that she would have the exact same policies as Biden if she becomes president. Her comment on “The View” was about the past, not the future.
She does support the continuation of many Biden policies, such as the pledge not to raise taxes for people making under $400,000. But she also has proposed new policies, including a plan to provide eligible first-time homebuyers with up to $25,000 in mortgage assistance.
In an Oct. 20 campaign speech from the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., Harris said: “I have been honored to serve as Joe Biden’s vice president, but I will bring my own experiences and ideas to the Oval Office. My presidency will be different because the challenges we face are different.”
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The post Another Deceptive Trump Ad Attacks Harris Using Partial Quotes from News Outlets appeared first on FactCheck.org.
