Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris made a misleading claim about Ebola during her first speech Wednesday as former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate, but fact-checkers did not report on it.
Harris and Biden appeared together for the first time publicly as a team Wednesday in Delaware – and both pushed misleading statements throughout the day. Despite consistently calling out President Donald Trump for similar lies, reporters remained silent on the content of Kamala’s speech.
Harris claimed Ebola was a “pandemic” before noting that it only killed two people in America. The World Health Organization did not label Ebola as a “pandemic.”
Kamala Harris: “It didn’t have to be this way. 6 years ago, in fact, we had a different health crisis. It was called Ebola … Barack Obama and Joe Biden did their job. Only two people in the United States died. Two. That is what’s called leadership.”
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 12, 2020
Ebola is also “not easily transmittable” and “was largely isolated to the region where it emerged,” according to Five Thirty Eight. A few critics, some of whom are doctors, did call Harris out – but legacy news publications remained mute. (RELATED: ‘People Will Say Anything To Get Power’: Greg Gutfeld Launches Attack On Biden And Harris)
Politifact, CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale, Snopes and The Washington Post did not appear to fact-check Harris.
It’s like comparing swine flu to the novel coronavirus. Swine flu was highly transmissible but was 30 to 50 times less deadly than COVID-19. https://t.co/wJrVgmC1GW https://t.co/GL341JAIfO
— Elias Atienza (@AtienzaElias) August 12, 2020
One of Biden’s statements that day also went unchecked. On Twitter Wednesday evening, the former vice president claimed that Trump called white supremacists after the 2017 Charlottesville attack “very fine people.” (RELATED: ‘People Will Say Anything To Get Power’: Greg Gutfeld Launches Attack On Biden And Harris)
CNN’s Jake Tapper previously noted this was not what Trump said. Reporters remained silent about Biden’s tweet Wednesday. (RELATED: CNN’s Tapper: Trump Didn’t Say ‘White Supremacists Are Very Fine People’)
“He’s not saying that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists are very fine people,” Tapper noted in 2019 after telling a panel that Trump did condemn the extremist groups during that same speech. “But he is saying people protesting alongside those neo-Nazis and white supremacists are very fine people.”
Even CNN’s Jake Tapper admits that President Donald Trump condemned neo-Nazis and white supremacists: “He’s not saying that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists are very fine people” pic.twitter.com/2hy1rQp8nP
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 26, 2019
The fact-checkers also remained silent on Biden’s tweet.