Trump supporters on social media just came across a Kamala Harris campaign ad that had been airing on TV for weeks. It featured two images of the border wall.
For years, the vice president has criticized former President Donald Trump’s demand to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, calling it “a stupid use of money‘ in 2017 and claims it ‘won’t make us safer‘ from 2020.
Those earlier statements didn’t stop her from portraying herself as a “border state prosecutor” in her ad, as an image of a wall cutting through a grassy terrain appears. At a later point in the ad, another image of a wall is shown next to a caption claiming Harris was prosecuting border gangs.
Even though Harris has not explicitly said she supports the wall, Mike Howell, the director of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, screenshotted the two images of the wall in the ad, highlighting her perceived hypocrisy.
“What does this ad say?” he wrote in a message on X. ‘Looks like the @realDonaldTrump BORDER WALL to me!’
Kamala Harris tried to portray herself in the ad as a “border state prosecutor” and someone who “prosecuted border gangs”
This aerial photo taken on December 8, 2023, shows the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Sasabe, Arizona.
It’s not entirely clear whether the portions of the border wall seen in Harris’ ad were built before Trump’s presidency, as barriers were already in place before he took office in 2017.
There’s also a good chance these images come from portions built under President Joe Biden, who built another 20 miles of Trump’s wall.
Still, a number of people responded to Howell’s post, most of them angry that Harris changed her mind or that she was partially adopting Trump’s tougher stance on immigration.
It’s no secret that strict border controls are currently more popular, with a Gallup March Poll which shows that 48 percent of Americans are “very concerned” about illegal immigration.
One user replied: ‘I was told walls don’t work… Are Democrats lying to me again?’
It’s not entirely clear whether the portions of the border wall shown in the Harris ad were built before Trump’s presidency
It’s not entirely clear whether the portions of the border wall seen in Harris’ ad were built before Trump’s presidency, as barriers were already in place before he took office in 2017.
Another wrote: ‘She did nothing. Now she turns around and says she’s going to do the opposite of what she did? Pray to God the people in this country are smart enough to see through the lies!’
Someone else posted an AI-generated image of her holding a tampon, with packaging that said #TamponTim, a reference to her running mate Tim Walz’s decision as governor of Minnesota to require feminine products in boys’ bathrooms in schools.
Others made vague references to Harris stealing other Trump policies, a narrative that has become increasingly popular in Republican circles of late.
For example, two weeks ago she promised to abolish the tax on tips for service providers if she won the November election.
Trump promised to do this at a Las Vegas rally months before Harris found out, and he even pitched the idea to Republicans in Congress a few days later.
Something similar happened when Trump’s running mate JD Vance said he was a “a child tax credit of $5,000 per child‘ on August 11th.
A few days later, Harris unveiled a number of policies, including a $6,000 child tax credit for newborns.
It’s important to note that Vance, a senator from Ohio, did not vote on Aug. 1 for a bill to expand the existing child tax credit.