Says Vice President Kamala Harris called the unvaccinated “dirty Trump people.”
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No, Kamala Harris didn’t call unvaccinated Americans ‘dirty Trump people’
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Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t call unvaccinated Americans "dirty Trump people" in a recent phone call with White House’s COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force.
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Her spokesperson called the claim a fabrication and said Harris didn’t participate in any such call.
Some social media users are circulating a claim that Vice President Kamala Harris made a disparaging comment about Americans who remain unvaccinated.
"Kamala Harris calls unvaccinated ‘Dirty Trump People,’" reads a headline displayed in a recent Instagram post.
The post cites an article from Real Raw News, a website with a history of publishing fabricated stories about public figures with made-to-go-viral headlines. It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat potential false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
There is no evidence that Harris said this. Her spokesperson called the story a fabrication.
The Real Raw News story claimed that an unidentified person at the National Institutes of Health told them Harris made the comment during a recent phone call with the White House’s COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force after Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, talked about the difficulty of vaccinating every American.
The article said that Harris then bemoaned "Trump supporters refusing to get vaccinated" and quoted her as blaming the spread of the delta and omicron COVID-19 variants on Trump and his "gang of dirty people."
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There’s just one problem — Harris wasn’t on the call.
"This is not true. No such call happened that the VP participated in," Symone Sanders, a spokesperson for Harris, wrote in an email.
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Real Raw News includes a disclaimer on its "About Us" page that tells readers its website contains "humor, parody and satire."
"Information on this website is for informational and educational and entertainment purposes," the disclaimer reads. "This website contains humor, parody, and satire. We have included this disclaimer for our protection, on the advice of legal counsel."
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Our Sources
Instagram post, Dec. 7, 2021
Real Raw News, Kamala Harris Calls Unvaccinated "Dirty Trump People", Dec. 5, 2021
Real Raw News, About Us, Accessed Dec. 8, 2021
PolitiFact, Hangings, guillotines and Gitmo: Going behind Real Raw News’ sensational (and fabricated) headlines, Sept. 24, 2021
Lead Stories, Fact Check: Vice President Kamala Harris Did NOT Call Unvaccinated Americans 'Dirty Trump People', Dec. 6, 2021
Email interview, Symone Sanders, spokesperson for Kamala Harris, Dec. 8, 2021
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No, Kamala Harris didn’t call unvaccinated Americans ‘dirty Trump people’
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