The claim: Video shows Harris campaign spokesperson saying VP doesn't own gun
A Sept. 22 Threads post ( direct link , archive link ) shows a member of Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign staff speaking with CNN anchor Jim Acosta.
"ARREST HER: Kamala Harris’s campaign senior spokesperson, Adrienne Elrod, confirms that Kamala Harris does NOT own a firearm," the post's caption reads.
An Instagram post that included a similar claim was liked more than 6,000 times in a day before it was deleted.
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Our rating: False
The post's caption is wrong. The video in the post and a CNN transcript show the spokesperson confirmed Harris is a gun owner who supports the Second Amendment. Harris also has said she is a gun owner.
Spokesperson tells CNN that Harris supports Second Amendment, owns gun
Harris' firearm ownership came up during her presidential debate with former President Donald Trump on ABC News on Sept. 10, when she said, "Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We're not taking anybody's guns away." Harris also said she was a gun owner during her presidential campaign in 2019, CNN reported at the time.
So it would be noteworthy if a high-ranking spokesperson for Harris' presidential campaign contradicted the vice president's statements about owning a firearm, as claimed in the social media posts. But that didn't happen here.
Elrod , a senior adviser and senior spokesperson for Harris' campaign, appeared on " CNN Newsroom " with anchor Jim Acosta on Sept. 20. Archived video of the segment shows Acosta mentioned Harris' Sept. 19 conversation with Oprah Winfrey during which Harris reiterated she is a gun owner and added that if someone breaks into her home, "they're getting shot." Acosta asked Elrod to share more information about Harris' gun ownership in light of the comment.
The video and a CNN transcript of the exchange show Elrod told Acosta that Harris "staunchly supports the Second Amendment" before saying Harris has a gun of her own.
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"She supports strong, responsible gun ownership and she does own a firearm," Elrod said, according to the transcript , which is also backed up by the video of her remarks . "So, you know, I don't know I can't really comment more than that except for the fact that she is somebody who does believe that if you are a responsible gun owner in this country and you want to have a gun in your home to protect your families, and if you want to have a, you know, gun to go hunting with, you are certainly able to."
Emily Kuhn , a spokesperson for CNN, told USA TODAY in an email that the news organization's "transcript is accurate."
The archived video 's transcription on archive.org erroneously states Elrod said Harris "doesn't own a firearm." This is simply an auto-generated transcript, though, as shown by the litany of sound-alike mistakes typical to such transcripts. They include mistaking "staunchly" for "saw actually" and "Harris's staff" for "Harris his staff."
Ian Sams , another Harris spokesperson, wrote on X , formerly Twitter, that video of the CNN segment "plainly" shows Elrod said, "She supports strong, responsible gun ownership, and she does own a firearm."
Sams' post was made in response to a Sept. 21 post by the X account Libs of TikTok , which shared a sped up, miscaptioned clip of the exchange between Acosta and Elrod.
USA TODAY reached out to the Threads user who shared the post but did not immediately receive a response. The Libs of TikTok X account didn't provide evidence to back up the claim in its post when contacted by USA TODAY.
PolitiFact also debunked the claim.
Our fact-check sources:
- Emily Kuhn , Sept. 25, Email exchange with USA TODAY
- CNN Transcripts, Sept. 20, CNN Newsroom Aired September 20, 2024 – 10:00 ET
- Internet Archive, Sept. 20, CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta CNN September 20, 2024 7:00am-8:00am PDT
- Ian Sams, Sept. 21, X post
- ABC News, Sept. 10, READ: Harris-Trump presidential debate transcript
- USA TODAY, Sept. 10, Kamala Harris said she won’t take Americans' guns away. Because she owns one too.
- CNN, April 11, 2019, Kamala Harris talks about owning a gun: ‘I was a career prosecutor’
- Face the Nation (YouTube), Sept. 20, Kamala Harris: "If somebody breaks in my house, they’re getting shot"
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Post wrongly claims Harris spokesperson said VP isn't gun owner | Fact check
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