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‘Kamala Harris was an escort,’ ‘she’s a drunk’ or ‘she was a man’ are some of the disinformation narratives that are circulating in Spanish about current US vice-president and Democratic Party candidate for the November presidential elections. Maldita.es has detected narratives attacking the candidate on alleged aspects of her private life and her supposed political ideology. Although some of these disinformation contents have been circulating for a long time, all of them have gone viral in the midst of the election campaign.
Maldita.es has already published about disinformation targeting women in politics, which sometimes differs from that received by their male colleagues. Those contents against women are more focused on attacking their personal or physical appearance than their validity as professionals, according to several experts consulted. They point out as well that this type of disinformation ‘distorts public understanding of women politicians’ careers’ and can discourage them from pursuing a political career.
These are the disinformation narratives about Kamala Harris that Maldita.es has analysed during the 2024 electoral campaign:
“Kamala Harris is paid off by Big Pharma: she is linked to Pfizer”
“Kamala is a criminal who ran over a 13-year-old girl with her car in San Francisco”
“Kamala Harris is a communist”
‘Kamala Harris was an escort’
This narrative claims that the US vice-president used to be an ‘escort’ or a ‘high-class prostitute.’ It is a disinformation narrative sometimes spread alongside manipulated or falsely contextualised images. There is no record of Harris having been a prostitute ever. Some of these contents claim she was an ‘escort’ when she was 29, at the time she was already working for the Alameda County District Attorney's Office in California.
‘Kamala slept her way to the top’
Another disinformation narrative states that Kamala Harris ‘slept her way to the top.’ It claims that Harris began her professional career thanks to a relationship with Willie Brown, a well-known Democratic Party politician and former mayor of San Francisco, and that this relationship happened while he was married.
This disinformation narrative is not new. In 2020 and 2022, Reuters and Associated Press reported that during the time she was in a relationship with Willie Brown, he had been separated from his wife for 13 years, even though he was still legally married. The fact-checkers also indicated that his relationship with Kamala Harris, which ended in 1995, was never a secret.
‘Kamala Harris is ineligible to serve as President’
That Kamala Harris ‘is not an American citizen and, thus, she is ineligible to be president’ is another message that has been spread. Under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, anyone born in the United States is a US citizen. Harris was born in Oakland, California. Associated Press publicly said they had a copy of her birth certificate dated as of October 20, 1964.
The US Constitution establishes three main requirements to be eligible to stand for election: to be a natural-born citizen of the United States, to be at least 35 years old, and to have been a legal resident of the US for 14 years. Thus, Kamala Harris meets the requirements for the office of Vice-president (which she currently holds) or President of the United States, according to the US Constitution.
‘Her father is white’
‘Her father is white.’ Statements like this spread the false message that Kamala Harris' father is white, and that, therefore, Harris is ‘not black.’ This is another misinformation narrative that international artists such as singer Janet Jackson have spread through the media.
Kamala Harris' father is Donald J. Harris, a Jamaican-born university professor who holds both Jamaican and US citizenships. The US Census, which collects data on citizens, considers descendants of black racial groups in Africa (African descendants) and other areas including Jamaica to be black people.
The narrative that states that she is ‘involved in paedophile and prostitution rings’, which is being spread alongside manipulated pictures of Harris with Jeffrey Epstein and rapper Sean ‘Diddy’
That Kamala Harris is allegedly involved in paedophile and prostitution rings is another one of the several disinformation narratives being spread about the vice-president. Images that are not real, that have been manipulated or disseminated with a false context are being used to prove this alleged link.
After the arrest of rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs for sex trafficking and abuse in New York, images of Kamala Harris have been circulating claiming that she appears with Diddy, but this is a hoax.
Someother contents claim that Harris had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who is convicted of child sex trafficking. It is disseminated along with two images: an alleged selfie of the Democrat politician with Epstein, and an alleged photograph of the two of them on the beach. However, hoaxes.
The narrative that states that ‘Kamala is a drunk person’: it is spread with a slowed-down video to make it look as if she were under the influence of alcohol
Another narrative circulating is that Kamala Harris is ‘a drunk person’, which has been spread, for example, with a slowed-down video that shows her as if she wereunder the influence of alcohol. In the original video, from a speech in Atlanta (Georgia) on September 20, it can be seen that her normal speed is faster than what it seems in the manipulated version that is being spread.
‘Kamala Harris used to be a man’
It has also been claimed that the Democratic candidate ‘used to be a man’. One of the contents shared with this narrative includes a picture of an alleged man. The messages state that he is Kamal Aroush, that he was born in Benghazi (Libya) and that he was Harris before swapping his gender. This is a hoax. The original image is an official photograph from 2017, when Harris was a Senator representing California, and it has been manipulated to portray her as a man.
‘Kamala has an IQ of 78’
‘Kamala Harris has an IQ [intelligence quotient] of 78 points.’ This is another one of the disinformation narratives that have been circulating about Harris. The source of this narrative is a Reddit post by a user who claims to have attended classes at Howard University with Harris, who allegedly scored 78 points on an IQ test. According to the American Psychiatric Association, ‘a score between 70 and 75 points is a significant intellectual and cognitive limitation’.
But no evidence is provided, and there is no public evidence anywhere to support this claim. Moreover, the user who originally posted it has deleted it, although screenshots of his message continue to circulate on social media.
“Kamala Harris is paid off by Big Pharma: she is linked to Pfizer”
‘Kamala Harris‘ family has bonds with the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer’. Messages like this try to link Kamala Harris to the pharmaceutical industry, claiming that she has some kind of bond with Pfizer, company that developed one of the coronavirus vaccines during the pandemic.
A video with the logos of media outlets CNN and Bellingcat has been used to spread this narrative, but it is a hoax: there is no record of either the international research organisation Bellingcat nor CNN having ever published it. Moreover, the founder of Bellingcat has said that the video is ‘fake,’ and a CNN journalist has added that the material ‘tries to fake the style’ of his recordings.
The video also makes some claims without any proof, source or evidence, about Tony West, Harris’ brother-n-law.
‘Kamala is a criminal who ran over a 13-year-old girl with her car in San Francisco’
According to this disinformation narrative, Alicia Brown, a 26-year-old woman from San Francisco (California, US), alleged that Kamala Harris was involved in a hit-and-run accident in 2011 that left her unable to walk. Further on, the content claims that Harris threatened Brown's family to keep the story quiet. The messages share a video or a link to the story published on a website that allegedly belongs to a local San Francisco TV station.
But there are some evidences that show that it is a disinformation content. The cover photo on the post corresponds to an accident that happened in Guam in 2018. Furthermore, the video with the alleged victim’s testimony shows some features that indicate that it could have been manipulated with tools such as Artificial Intelligence programmes or similar.
“Kamala Harris is a communist”
The narrative that Kamala Harris ‘is a communist’ has been spread on different occasions and by several people, including former US president and Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump ever since Harris accepted the Democratic nomination.
This narrative has also gone viral on social media, and Factchequeado has detected false elements with which it has been spread, such as a fake Soviet Socialist Party credential card with the face of Kamala Harris.
Harris has said, as she did in 2019, that she is not a socialist, but a pro-capitalism person. Moreover, a spokesperson of her campaign told PolitiFact in August 2024 that the Vice-president was a ‘capitalist’.
Cover image credit: Kamala Harris at a rally in Philadelphia on 10 September, Jim Watson / AFP
