VICTOR JOECKS: Fact checking Harris’ Las Vegas stump speech

When Donald Trump uses hyperbole, mainstream media members pull out their fainting couches. When Vice President Kamala Harris tells brazen falsehoods, they fawn over her.

On Saturday, Harris held a rally in Las Vegas. The most newsworthy part of her speech was her call to “eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.”

She’s not the first one to put forth this proposal. She’s copying Trump, who has spent weeks promoting such a proposal. But see if you can spot the subtle difference in how legacy outlets covered the news.

“Former President Donald Trump’s vow to stop taxing tips would cost the federal government up to $250 billion over 10 years, according to a nonpartisan watchdog group,” CBS News wrote on X in June.

And here’s CBS News on X when after Harris co-opted the idea: “Vice President Kamala Harris is rolling out a new policy position, saying she’ll fight to end taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.”

It gets worse. Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. That contained $80 billion in new funding for the IRS. Flush with cash, the IRS unveiled a new system to track tips next year. The obvious goal: collect more income tax from previously unreported tips.

A flip-flop like this should be a major story. Instead, the national legacy media is too busy parroting the talking point that her campaign is “pushing joy.”

What Harris is really pushing are a number of falsehoods. Consider the rest of her Las Vegas speech.

“He intends to cut Social Security and Medicare,” she claimed. Nope. Trump has said, “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security.”

“He would sign a national abortion ban,” Harris stated. Trump wants the issue left to the states, and his allies limited opposition to abortion in the GOP platform.

Trump wants to allow insurance companies “to deny people with pre-existing conditions,” Harris said. In 2020, Trump signed an executive order making “protection of pre-existing conditions official U.S. policy,” U.S. News reported.

Harris said, “He talks a big game about border security, but he does not walk the walk.” During the Trump administration, Border Patrol recorded around 2 million border apprehensions. During the Biden/Harris administration, there have been 10 million border encounters.

No wonder Harris is running away from her role as border czar. Her job was to stem the tide of illegal immigration. She failed miserably.

Those weren’t the only direct falsehoods the media ignored. But perhaps the most grating thing from the speech was her spin on the economy.

“We believe in a future where we lower the cost of living for America’s families,” she said.

What an absurd thing for the sitting vice president to say. We’re living in the “future” she and Biden spent the past three-and-a-half years creating. It’s unaffordable.

If her policies worked, Harris wouldn’t be running on brazen falsehoods, flip-flops and laughable claims. But they don’t, so she’s stuck with the dishonesty enabled by a mainstream media willing to look the other way.

Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.