Video taken out of context: Vice President Kamala Harris isn’t against saying ‘Merry Christmas’

With the Christmas season less than a month away, social media posts are saying Vice President Kamala Harris doesn't want people to say "Merry Christmas". But Harris isn't the Grinch — a clip of her from years ago was taken out of context.

"How dare we speak ‘Merry Christmas’, How dare we?," says Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, in a video clip on a Nov. 4 Instagram post. The post also shows a clip of former President Donald Trump saying, "We’re saying Merry Christmas again".

The video shows different footage of Trump and former first lady Melania Trump, around Christmas decorations and even footage of Trump in the "Home Alone" movie, which centered on a Christmas scenario. But Harris doesn’t want to ban saying "Merry Christmas." 

Matt Wallace, a conservative political commentator, and by the conservative account End Wokeness also shared the same video on X. 

The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

PolitiFact did a reverse-image search of the video of Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, and found that this video is from 2017 and was taken out of context. 

Fox News republished the video in August with the headline: "Flashback: Harris told Americans not to say 'Merry Christmas' until DACA was fixed." 

Harris made her comment during a Dec. 19, 2017, news conference at the United Methodist Building in Washington, D.C., near the U.S. Capitol, when she was a Democratic U.S. senator representing California. Harris was referring to how people could say "Merry Christmas" to each other if Congress didn’t pass the DREAM Act, which stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors. The act would have provided a pathway to citizenship for some immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children, according to NBC News. 

The DREAM Act’s first version was introduced in 2001, and during the last 20 years, at least 20 versions have been introduced in Congress. But so far none has passed, according to the American Immigration Council, an immigrant-rights advocacy group. The 2010 version of the bill came closest to full passage when it passed the House of Representatives but fell just five votes short of the 60 needed to proceed in the Senate. 

Harris made her remarks after Trump, as president, ordered in fall 2017 the phase out of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which permitted certain people brought to the U.S. illegally as children to live and work in the United States and temporarily protected them from deportation. 

"It is morally wrong, and when we all sing happy tunes and sing "Merry Christmas" and wish each other "Merry Christmas." These children are not going to have a Merry Christmas," Harris says  during the 58-second video. "How dare we speak "Merry Christmas"? How dare we? They will not have a Merry Christmas, they don’t know if they will be here in a matter of days, weeks and months." 

NBC Latino posted Harris' quote on a 2017 X post, saying she was at a DREAM Act rally. PolitiFact couldn’t find the original video of Harris’ speech at the news conference.

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Harris also posted Dec. 20, 2017, on her Facebook an image of a person with a sign that says, "I need to be able to tell my children I did not stay silent!!" The caption reads: "DACA is an urgent issue and something we must address immediately. Each day in limbo in the life of these young Dreamers is a very long time. We cannot stay silent. We must pass the Dream Act now."

But Harris isn’t opposed to Christmas.

We searched Google and the Nexis news database and found no statements from Harris saying she wants to ban Christmas or that she opposes the holiday. 

PolitiFact also found multiple occasions from 2017 to 2023 when Harris posted on her social media wishing people "Merry Christmas."

For example, her Dec. 25, 2023, Instagram post reads, "Merry Christmas to all. May your day be filled with love, family, and good food." 

This 2017 video of Harris saying, "How dare we speak ‘Merry Christmas?’" was taken out of context. There’s no evidence she wants to stop people from saying, "Merry Christmas." We rate this claim False.