Vice President Kamala Harris has been running for president for just over a week, and most of that time has been spent attacking former President Donald Trump while media does the real heavy lifting: putting distance between Harris and policy positions she embraced either as a part of President Joe Biden’s administration or during her 2020 presidential campaign.
On Sunday, the policy in question was fracking — which Harris promised she would ban during her presidential campaign — and the outlet was Politico.
“Harris campaign pledges she won’t ban fracking after Trump accusation,” the headline read, and the text parroted the Harris campaign’s claim that the Trump campaign had made a false accusation even though Harris herself had done exactly what they said she had. Politico later dropped “after Trump accusation” from the headline.
“Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign pledged the likely Democratic presidential nominee would not ban fracking, rejecting what it called ‘false’ accusations by Donald Trump that she would prohibit the technology if elected president,” Ben Lefebvre wrote for the outlet.
“Trump’s false claims about fracking bans are an obvious attempt to distract from his own plans to enrich oil and gas executives at the expense of the middle class. The Biden-Harris Administration passed the largest ever climate change legislation and under their leadership, America now has the highest ever domestic energy production,” The Harris campaign said in a statement, and issued a later statement saying that she would not ban fracking.
But Harris said that she would ban the practice several times, and until Trump said something about it, she had not made any attempt to walk it back.
Make no mistake, Kamala Harris supports a ban on fracking. She said so multiple times.
Roll the tape: pic.twitter.com/eoNR9Eijgn
— Dave McCormick (@DaveMcCormickPA) July 29, 2024
This marks the second time in eight days that media has run cover for Harris, beginning with their repeated attempts to distance her from their own reporting on her elevation to Border Czar under President Biden.