Trump supporters on social media are just now coming across a Kamala Harris campaign ad that’s been airing on TV for weeks – and it features two images of the border wall.
For years, the vice president has attacked former President Donald Trump‘s insistence on having a wall at the US-Mexico border, calling it ‘a stupid use of money‘ in 2017 and claiming it ‘won’t make us any safer‘ in 2020.
Those previous proclamations didn’t stop her from portraying herself as a ‘border state prosecutor’ in her ad as an image flashes of a wall cutting through a grassy terrain. At a later point in the ad, another image of a wall is shown alongside a caption that claimed Harris prosecuted border gangs.
Even though Harris didn’t explicitly say she supports the wall, Mike Howell, the executive director of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, screenshotted the two wall images in the ad and seized on her supposed hypocrisy.
‘What is that in this ad?’ he wrote in a post on X. ‘Looks like the @realDonaldTrump BORDER WALL to me!’
Throughout the ad, Kamala Harris sought to portray herself as ‘border state prosecutor’ and someone who ‘prosecuted border gangs’
This aerial picture taken on December 8, 2023 shows the US-Mexico border wall in Sasabe, Arizona
It’s not entirely clear if the sections of the border wall shown in the Harris ad were constructed before Trump’s presidency – as there was already barriers in place prior to 2017 when he took office.
There is also the distinct possibility that these images could have been taken from sections constructed under President Joe Biden, who continued building 20 more miles of Trump’s wall.
Nonetheless, a number of people replied to Howell’s post, most of them angry that Harris was flip-flopping or that she was at least partially adopting Trump’s more hardline stance on immigration.
It’s no secret that being tough on the border is more popular at the moment, with a March poll from Gallup finding that 48 percent of Americans are ‘highly concerned’ about illegal immigration.
One user replied saying: ‘I was told walls don’t work though…Was I lied to again by democrats?’
It’s not entirely clear if the sections of the border wall shown in the Harris ad were constructed before Trump’s presidency
It’s not entirely clear if the sections of the border wall shown in the Harris ad, pictured, were constructed before Trump’s presidency – as there was already barriers in place prior to 2017 when he took office
Another wrote: ‘She did nothing. Now she flip flops completely and says she will do the opposite of what she has done? 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 a wrapper that said #TamponTim, a reference to her running mate Tim Walz’ decision as Minnesota governor to have feminine products in boy’s bathrooms at schools.
Others made vague allusions to Harris stealing other Trump policies, a narrative that’s been gaining traction in Republican circles as of late.
For instance, she promised two weeks ago that she would abolish tax on tips for service workers if she wins the election in November.
Trump vowed to do the same at a Las Vegas rally months before Harris caught on, even pitching the idea to congressional Republicans days later.
Something potentially similar happened when Trump’s running mate JD Vance said he supported a ‘a child tax credit that’s $5,000 per child‘ on August 11.
Days later, Harris came out with a plank of policies, one of which included a $6,000 child tax credit for newborns.
It is important to note that Vance, who is a senator from Ohio, failed to cast a vote on August 1 for a bill that would expand the existing child tax credit.