Vice President Harris and the Democratic Use of the 'Border Crisis' Label

Unique Points

• Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic allies are labeling Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. JD Vance as ‘weird’
• Democrats are using the label to respond to Republican comments, particularly on issues like abortion and political power of childless Americans
• David Karpf, a strategic communication professor at George Washington University, noted that labeling Republican comments as ‘weird’ is an effective and concise take that resonates quickly with Harris supporters and frustrates opponents

Accuracy

• Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic allies are labeling Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. JD Vance as 'weird'.
• The 'weird' message has given Democrats a narrative advantage in political discussions.
• Trumpйs campaign has tried to flip the script by highlighting things about Democrats they consider weird.
• Kamala Harris has a long history that depicts her as an uber-liberal.
• Harris helped promote a bail fund to get criminals out of jail during BLM riots in 2020.

Deception (30%)

• Democrats are applying the label with gusto in interviews and online, notably to Vance’s comments on abortion and his previous suggestion that political leaders who didn’t have biological children ‘don’t really have a direct stake in the country.'
• Responding to Trump’s Thursday appearance on Fox News, the Harris campaign included ‘Trump is old and quite weird?’ in a bulleted list of takeaways.
• Many of Democrats’ comments appear to be allusions to a 2021 interview with Vance in which he slammed some prominent Democrats without biological children – including Harris – as ‘childless cat ladies with no direct stake in America.’
• Two of Harris’ allies, Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, on Friday posted a video on X calling Vance’s past comments about limiting the political power of childless Americans ‘a super weird idea.’

Fallacies (80%)

• Democrats are applying the label with gusto in interviews and online, notably to Vance’s comments on abortion and his previous suggestion that political leaders who didn’t have biological children ‘don’t really have a direct stake in the country.’
• Responding to Trump’s Thursday appearance on Fox News, the Harris campaign included ‘Trump is old and quite weird?’ in a bulleted list of takeaways.
• Two of Harris’ allies, Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, on Friday posted a video on X calling Vance’s past comments about limiting the political power of childless Americans ‘a super weird idea.’
• Many of Democrats’ comments appear to be allusions to a 2021 interview with Vance in which he slammed some prominent Democrats without biological children – including Harris – as ‘childless cat ladies with no direct stake in America.’

Bias (80%)

• Democrats are applying the label with gusto in interviews and online, notably to Vance’s comments on abortion and his previous suggestion that political leaders who didn’t have biological children ‘don’t really have a direct stake in the country.’
• Many of Democrats’ comments appear to be allusions to a 2021 interview with Vance in which he slammed some prominent Democrats without biological children – including Harris – as ‘childless cat ladies’ with ‘no direct stake in America.’
• The Harris campaign – in a news release with the subject line ‘Statement on a 78-Year-Old Criminal’s Fox News Appearance’ – included ‘Trump is old and quite weird?’ in a bulleted list of takeaways.
• Two of Harris’ allies, Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, on Friday posted a video on X calling Vance’s past comments about limiting the political power of childless Americans ‘a super weird idea.’

Site Conflicts Of Interest (100%)

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Unique Points

• Kamala Harris saw an opportunity to go after Trump by criticizing JD Vance's appointment as his running mate, due to his lack of government experience and perceived unpreparedness for the role.
• Harris and her team were excited to face Vance as they could easily portray him as a hypocrite and Trump sycophant, making it easier for them to gain support.
• Vance's appointment has led Harris's team to hold him up against the people on her own shortlist in order to create a contrast in experience and qualifications.

Accuracy

• Kamala Harris saw an opportunity to go after Trump by criticizing JD Vance’s appointment as his running mate, due to his lack of government experience and perceived unpreparedness for the role.
• Vance’s appointment has led Harris’s team to hold him up against the people on her own shortlist in order to create a contrast in experience and qualifications.

Deception (100%)

None Found At Time Of Publication

Fallacies (100%)

None Found At Time Of Publication

Bias (80%)

• As was the case when Biden was in his final deliberations about her four years ago, Harris believes that the foremost factor has to be who is going to help her win.
• Given questions about President Trump’s health, as well as his advanced age, the selection of a running mate here is as important as any since FDR’s last campaign – and JD Vance is no Harry Truman.
• He didn’t even run a business. He’s never run anything.
• Several people hoping to get picked as Harris’ ticket mate echoed that message as they angle for the job.
• Those considerations are intertwined with immediate concerns that she has continued to stress in internal meetings: needing to unify the party and remember that, despite her meteoric first week as a candidate, ‘We’re the underdogs in this race.’

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Unique Points

• Kamala Harris has a long history that depicts her as an uber-liberal.
• Harris helped promote a bail fund to get criminals out of jail during BLM riots in 2020.
• Harris said it’s outdated and wrong to think that more police officers will create more safety.
• During her campaign, Harris favored Medicare for All which would abolish private health insurance.
• Axios reported that Harris was appointed as border czar in 2021 after initially denying it.
• Trump accused Harris of engineering a coup and called her weird and extreme.

Accuracy

No Contradictions at Time Of Publication

Deception (35%)

• During the BLM riots in the summer of 2020, after George Floyd’s murder, Harris helped promote a bail fund to get the criminals out of jail. She said in one interview: ‘They’re not going to let up and they should not. And we should not.’
• The media has what influential blogger Andrew Sullivan calls ‘amnesia’, writing that while she might even win, Harris is one of the weakest and wokest Democratic candidates there is. She cannot credibly appeal to the center after such extreme-left posturing.
• And during her 2020 campaign she said: ‘Private prisons are making money off the incarceration and suffering of human beings. One of my first acts of business as president will be to begin phasing out detention centers and private prisons.’

Fallacies (85%)

• The former president may have lowered expectations by calling Harris “dumb as a rock”, given the almost flawless execution of her first week.
• The author uses inflammatory language such as “the weird and extreme views” when referring to JD Vance's comments.
• The author implies a double standard in media coverage by contrasting the coverage of Kamala Harris and JD Vance, stating “the whole thing is, uh, very strange.”

Bias (75%)

• The Trump camp, where the former president called Harris a "bum," among other epithets, and boasted about mispronouncing her name, is surfacing some of her greatest liberal hits. But the mainstream press has what influential blogger Andrew Sullivan calls "amnesia," writing that while she might even win, "Harris is one of the weakest and wokest Democratic candidates there is. She cannot credibly appeal to the center after such extreme-left posturing."

Site Conflicts Of Interest (100%)

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Unique Points

• ./u0027Weird” is being used as a simplification of warnings about the threat to democracy that Trump poses.
• ./u03bcPete Buttigieg has also described Trump as 'older and stranger than when America first got to know himμ.
• ./Trump insists on his self-proclaimed infallibility despite criticism of his ignorance of basic physics in the boat story.

Accuracy

• ./u0027Weird' is being used as a simplification of warnings about the threat to democracy that Trump poses.
• ./u201CWeird' behavior' observed in Trump includes his laughing at people instead of with them and rambling on the trail.
• Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic allies are labeling Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. JD Vance as 'weird'.
• Trump insists on his self-proclaimed infallibility despite criticism of his ignorance of basic physics in the boat story.

Deception (30%)

• The Harris campaign, working to redefine the race with particular attention to the youth vote, has sought to draw attention to Trump’s rally storytelling. Particularly, they have highlighted his frequent references to the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter of The Silence of the Lambs fame as well as the choice between being shocked by a sinking electric boat or being eaten by a shark.
• The new Democratic line on Trump comes after several days of criticism aimed at Vance not only about the childless cat lady comment – but also because of reportedly resurfaced comments calling Trump morally reprehensible and expressing his hatred for police officers, who generally enjoy the support of Republicans. The developments come as a new ABC News/Ipsos poll on Sunday found that Harris’s favorability rating had jumped to 43% from 35% a week earlier.
• US Democrats have spent recent days trying out a relatively new attack line on Donald Trump: that he is weird.
• But listen to the guy. He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter and shocking sharks and whatever crazy thing pops into his mind.

Fallacies (85%)

• US Democrats have spent recent days trying out a relatively new attack line on Donald Trump: that he is weird.
• The seventh of nine entries was: Trump is old and quite weird?
• At a fundraising event in Massachusetts on Saturday, Harris tried out the line again, describing what Trump and running mate JD Vance had been saying about her as just plain weird.
• But ‘weird’ is what seems to be sticking, in part as an apparent simplification of warnings about the threat to democracy that Trump poses – which dominated 15 months of Biden’s re-election campaign.
• Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, appears to have started the weird political trendline. He posted on X, Say it with me: Weird., in response to a video of Trump speaking about Lecter. Walz later followed up with the guys are weird to describe Trump and Vance.
• Listen to the guy. He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter and shocking sharks and whatever crazy thing pops into his mind.
• Pete Buttigieg, also an outside contender for Harris’ vice-president pick, tried a slightly amended line, telling Fox News that Trump is clearly older and stranger than when America first got to know him.

Bias (80%)

• “I mean that’s the box you put that in,” Harris said after Trump had called her “a bum” the previous day and Vance disparaged her in 2021 as a “childless cat (lady)”.
• “Is Donald Trump OK?” the X message said. The seventh of nine entries was: “Trump is old and quite weird?”
• “I think we give him way too much credit. If you just ratchet down some of the scariness and just name it what it is. Have you seen the guy laugh? It seems very weird to me that an adult can go through six and a half years of being in the public eye and when he laughs it’s at someone – not with them. “That’s very weird behavior,” Walz explained on State of the Union.
• “The new Democratic line on Trump comes after several days of criticism aimed at Vance not only about the “childless cat” lady comment – but also because of reportedly resurfaced comments calling Trump “morally reprehensible” and expressing his hatred for police officers, who generally enjoy the support of Republicans.“I’ll bet President Trump is sitting there scratching his head and wondering, why did I pick this guy? The choice may be one of the best things he ever did for Democrats,” Schumer said.

Site Conflicts Of Interest (100%)

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Unique Points

• Former president Donald Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), is under criticism for his past comments about childless Americans.
• Trump insists on his self-proclaimed infallibility despite criticism of his ignorance of basic physics in the boat story.

Accuracy

• JD Vance called Democrats 'a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they’ve made.',
• JD Vance argued that parents should be able to cast an extra ballot for each child in their family who is under voting age.
• Donald Trump insists on his self-proclaimed infallibility despite criticism of his ignorance of basic physics in the boat story.

Deception (30%)

• My god, they went after cat people. Good luck with that.
• It would be strange for Democrats to attack the Republican presidential ticket for being ‘weird’ if it wasn’t true.
• JD Vance Is a Creep (Who Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide).
• But those men are getting weirder by the day.

Fallacies (80%)

• ]It would be strange for Democrats to attack the Republican presidential ticket for being ‘weird’ if it wasn’t true. But those men are getting weirder by the day.[
• Voters know it - Vance is the most unpopular VP pick in decades.
• Republicans were all set to run against Biden’s age and fragility. Now, the instinct of some MAGA zealots is to run against Harris’s race and gender.

Bias (10%)

• Democrats would be foolish to think the weirdness factor alone is enough to defeat Trump and Vance.
• It would be strange for Democrats to attack the Republican presidential ticket for being “weird” if it wasn’t true. But those men are getting weirder by the day.
• Republicans, meanwhile, are struggling to settle on a new strategy. They were all set to run against Biden’s age and fragility. Now, the instinct of some MAGA zealots is to run against Harris’s race and gender — calling her a “DEI hire,” for example, using “diversity, equity and inclusion” as shorthand for “Black, Asian American and female.

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