Fact checking Harris’s round of media appearances

After sticking mainly to set events and campaign rallies, Vice President Kamala Harris has been on an extensive media tour in recent days, from traditional shows such as CBS’s “60 Minutes” to popular targeted programs such as the “Call Her Daddy” podcast and Howard Stern’s radio show. Harris tends tohew to the facts — and many of the same lines — leaving little opportunity for fact-checking. Here’s a roundup of claims that caught our attention from her appearances.

“The first bill we proposed to Congress was to fix our broken immigration system, knowing that if you want to actually fix it, we need Congress to act. It was not taken up.”

— Remarks on “60 Minutes,” aired Oct. 7

This is misleading. Harris made this comment in response to a question about why the Biden-Harris administration did not institute a border crackdown earlier. Readers might get the impression from her comments that the legislation involved tougher border security.

But the bill Biden proposed was called the U.S. Citizenship Act and it mostly focused on creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and expanding legal immigration. Unlike a bipartisan Senate bill crafted earlier this year, it did not call for additional Border Patrol agents — something that Harris now says is essential — and it did not change the asylum process. Instead, it had modest provisions “to deploy technology to expedite screening and enhance the ability to identify narcotics and other contraband at every land, air, and sea port of entry.”

“I have a Glock. And I have had it for quite some time.”

— Remarks on “60 Minutes”

This raises more questions. A Harris campaign aide declined to say when she acquired the firearm, pointing only to a 2019 news report that says she had acquired it “many years before.” The article quoted her as saying: “I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do — for personal safety. I was a career prosecutor.”

Her remarks in 2019 suggest that she acquired the gun when she was San Francisco district attorney from 2004 to 2011. That’s also when she sought to restrict handgun ownership.

In 2005, she supported a ballot measure to prohibit San Francisco residents from possessing handguns within San Francisco, though it may not have applied to a prosecutor. “An exception would allow residents to possess handguns if it is required for specific professional purposes,” Proposition H said. “For example, San Francisco residents who are security guards, peace officers or active members of the U.S. armed forces would be permitted to possess handguns.”

The measure passed but later was thrown out by the courts.

Glock pistols have magazines with a minimum of 10 rounds — and some are higher. Harris has proposed a ban on large-capacity magazines, generally defined as more than 10.

The Harris campaign aide would say only that the gun is in a secure location in her home in California.

“We have cut the flow of fentanyl by half.”

— Remarks on “60 Minutes”

“We’ve seen … the intake of fentanyl reduced by half.”

— Remarks on “The View,” Oct. 8

This is false. The Harris aide said she was speaking about the more than doubling of fentanyl seizures during the Biden-Harris administration, from 11,200 pounds in fiscal year 2021 to 27,000 pounds in fiscal year 2023, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. In fiscal year 2024,with just one month of data left to count, seizures have dropped to 19,700 pounds.

We wouldn’t call this merely misspeaking, since she madethe same incorrect claim in different interviews conducted days apart.

Moreover, fentanyl seizures are an imperfect metric. It could mean that law enforcement is doing a better job. But more seizures also might indicate that the drug flow has increased, and that law enforcement is missing even more. DonaldTrump, when he was president, also touted drug seizures as positive, but now he and his running mate, Sen.JD Vance (R-Ohio), cite the data to claim the amount of fentanyl coming into the United States is at an all-time high.

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