A guide to the coming attacks on Kamala Harris

Vice President Kamala Harris holds a campaign event in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on July 18, 2024. (Photo by Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images)

On Sunday at 1:46 PM Eastern Time, President Joe Biden announced he would end his campaign for reelection. Seconds later, the attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris began. 

Harris is not yet the nominee. But she has declared her intention to seek the nomination and received an endorsement from Biden. Prominent Democrats including former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and many others quickly threw their support behind Harris. She is the strong favorite to secure the nomination.

Some of the attacks on Harris were predictable. For example, shortly after Biden's announcement, the Trump campaign blamed Harris for a "migrant crime wave" over the last three years. This was also the centerpiece of Trump's campaign against Biden, but the "migrant crime wave" does not exist. Violent crime has decreased every year since Biden took office — and is down sharply again in 2024. (The last time violent crime increased was 2020, when Trump was president.) Further, a study of the 14 Texas counties along the border with Mexico by crime analyst Jeff Asher found "no evidence of increasing violent crime along the US border with Mexico." In fact, border counties "have seen a relatively steady violent crime rate below that of the rest of their state and the nation as a whole."

Other attacks include those that seem to pop up any time a woman seeks a position of power. The RNC Research X account, which attacks Trump's opponents on behalf of his campaign and the Republican National Committee, posted a video attacking Harris for being "annoying." The post features a video of Harris saying a short phrase — "what can be, unburdened by what has been" — in various settings for four minutes. This is only a slight variation of the common complaint that ambitious women are "shrill." 

Other criticisms, however, were more specific to Harris. They will be featured in millions of dollars of campaign advertisements, incorporated into Trump's stump speech, and discussed frequently on Fox News. Here is a brief guide to some of the attacks that will be used to define Harris in the weeks ahead. 

The truth about Jaleel Stallings

Trump War Room, the "Official War Room account of the 2024 Trump campaign," posted on X that Harris "helped raise money for a far-left organization that bailed a rioter who shot at police out of jail." 

In 2020, Harris encouraged people to donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF), an organization that helps people who need assistance with cash bail. The MFF did pay $75,000 to get Jaleel Stallings out of jail. Stallings was "charged with attempted murder after allegedly shooting at police during protests on May 30 [2020]."

But that was four years ago. Stallings, "an Army veteran with a gun permit," was protesting the killing of George Floyd when he was "shot in the chest with a rubber bullet from an unmarked white van." Stallings returned fire to protect himself. At trial, one of the officers in the van testified that they "didn't identify themselves as law enforcement, nor did they warn Stallings he would be shot by 40-millimeter rounds -- sometimes called rubber bullets -- if he didn't comply." Further, "body camera and surveillance videos contradicted the officers’ stories." The jury "found [Stallings] acted in self-defense and found him not guilty."

Following the shooting, the police officers "beat and kicked Stallings repeatedly while he lay prone on the ground, resulting in facial fractures." One of the officers involved in the beating, Justin Stetson, "pleaded guilty…to felony and gross misdemeanor charges." Stetson, who is banned from future employment in law enforcement, "apologized to Stallings and admitted to his wrongful behavior." 

More broadly, the purpose of cash bail is not to protect the public but to assure that a person charged with a crime returns for their next court date. If a judge believes that a person is a danger, that person can be held without bail. The cash bail system is widely criticized as unfairly punitive to people with limited means. 

Where's the beef?

In the hours after Biden's withdrawal, an RNC Research post suggested that Harris supported banning red meat. 

The video is a clip from an April 2019 CNN town hall on the climate crisis. Harris was asked if she would support changes to the federal dietary guidelines to deemphasize the consumption of red meat. 

Harris said that she would support changing the dietary guidelines. She added, however, that she "loves cheeseburgers" and favors policies to "encourage moderation" and educate consumers "about the effects of our eating habits on our environment" rather than "banning certain behaviors." 

A similar claim was made against Harris in 2020 and rated false by independent fact-checkers.

2009 is not 2024

On X, the GOP account posted an attack ad against Harris that claimed that "as a prosecutor in San Francisco, Harris allowed illegal immigrant drug dealers to enter job training and have their criminal records wiped clean." The Willie Horton-style attack claims that "one of the illegal immigrants Harris released went on to steal an SUV and ran down a young woman, seriously injuring her." 

Harris did have a program called Back on Track that "placed young first-time drug offenders who pleaded guilty to their crimes into a jobs program rather than jail." The program was successful. While recidivism rates are typically 50% or higher, recidivism was "less than 10 percent among Back On Track graduates." And "the program costs only $5,000 per person, compared to over $35,000 a year for county jail."

Undocumented immigrants were not eligible for the program since the purpose was to help first-time offenders enter the job market — and undocumented immigrants were ineligible to work legally. One undocumented immigrant, Alexander Izaguirre, was able to enroll by mistake and, in July 2008, stole a woman's purse. Izaguirre jumped into an SUV, and when the woman jumped onto the hood of the vehicle, she was injured. Harris acknowledged that Izaguirre was admitted into the program in error and put in place safeguards to prevent it from happening again. 

The image featured in the attack ad has nothing to do with Izaguirre. It is a photo of a single-car crash that occurred in San Francisco on January 1, 2024. 

Private health insurance confusion

On Sunday afternoon, Fox News commentator Guy Benson posted a screenshot of an NBC article claiming that Harris wants to "end private health insurance."

During a 2019 presidential primary debate, the candidates were asked the following question by NBC's Lester Holt:

Many people watching at home have health insurance through their employer. Who here would abolish their private health insurance in favor of a government-run plan?

Many people, including numerous journalists, "understood Holt to be asking about the candidates’ personal health-care choices." The next day, in an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Harris said she also thought she was being asked whether she personally would be willing to give up her private health insurance for a government plan. Harris clarified that even if the United States passed a single-payer health care system, "she would in fact preserve supplemental private insurance." 

None of this was mentioned by Benson.