Vice President Kamala not only earned a “community notes” fact-check on the X platform for a false claim she made about former President Donald Trump, but she also received a stinging rebuke from the platform’s principal shareholder, Elon Musk.
In a June 30 post, Harris repeated the false claim that Trump would move for a nationwide ban on abortion if he becomes president, which he has repeatedly stated otherwise and did so again during his recent debate against President Joe Biden.
“Donald Trump would ban abortion nationwide. President [Biden] and I will do everything in our power to stop him and restore women’s reproductive freedom,” she wrote.
During the debate and before then, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade a year ago, Trump not only said he agreed with the justices’ returning the issue of abortion to the states — where it resided before the 1973 ‘Wade’ decision — and that he would continue to support the “states’ rights” position of the ruling as president if he wins another term.
Following her post, Harris was chastised by several X users, many of whom pointed to reports from even left-leaning media that had accurately reported Trump’s position. But the most notable ‘correction’ came from Musk.
“When will politicians, or at least the intern who runs their account, learn that lying on this platform doesn’t work anymore?” Musk wrote.
“Do you see why the system has tried to take out Elon?” Dave Rubin, a host and contributor with The Blaze Media, responded. “He is able to help us debunk this nonsense in real time.”
Biden also told a horrific lie during the debate that was fact-checked by X users and the New York Post.
“I’m the only president this century that doesn’t have any — this decade — that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world, like [Trump] did,” Biden claimed.
But at least 16 U.S. troops have been killed since Biden became president: 13 during his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and three more during a deadly drone strike on their position in Jordan.
For his part, Musk appears to believe that the first debate between Biden and Trump was little more than political theater.
Musk took to his X platform shortly after the debate to give his thoughts, writing in response to a post from billionaire venture capitalist David Sacks: “They’re just talking puppets. It was a setup for a switch.”
Sacks wrote, “Watching the CNN commentators put the knife in Biden’s back is actually sickening. No loyalty. No remorse. It’s just gross.”
University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato said during a CNN segment on Friday that the race between Biden and Trump is “no longer close” while dismissing the idea that the former could make up much ground doing an interview with ABC News or some rallies to tighten the gap.
“I don’t think [President Biden] can change the dynamic with one interview,” he said. “I suppose you’d say stop the bleeding and the bleeding has been bad. I mean, we’ve been looking at all the data coming in, all the surveys — some public, some private — and it’s bad. Democrats need to understand that things are not stable and it is no longer close. The race between Biden and Trump is no longer close.”
“Just take the four last week, including CNN’s poll — all of them were in agreement, which you rarely see even with well-conducted polls: Biden, who was really maybe even, maybe two points behind Trump, is now — at least in unison in these polls — six points behind,” Sabato added. “That’s millions and millions of voters. And what is it that’s going to restore them? A good interview, a good rally? Come on.”
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
