Right-wing media pilloried Vice President Kamala Harris for a video in which she teaches kids about space, expressing outrage over the use of child actors in the informational short.
The video is part of a new YouTube Originals series called “Getting Curious With Vice President Harris.” The first video is about NASA and the Naval Observatory, and it features children speaking with the vice president and other officials. Despite the video’s publication on YouTube Kids, complete with narration, graphics, and staged scenes, conservative media were shocked to learn that the children in the video are actors.
Three days after the video premiered, one of the children in the video spoke to his local news station about what it was like to film the video and meet the vice president, and then the story got picked up by right-wing media. Fox host Tucker Carlson featured the story on his prime-time television show, with Daily Wire personality Candace Owens as his guest, and it spread from there.
Much of the news organizations’ ire was directed at Harris for supposedly making this children’s video instead of focusing on issues like Afghanistan and the border. The Washington Examiner gave a dramatic retelling of events:
The Biden administration has been hiring illusionists.
First, they denied that there was a border crisis. But there was one.
Then Biden claimed he had no idea Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban so quickly. But there were internal memos in the State Department that warned precisely that.
Then Biden was caught trying to persuade then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to lie about the situation in his country because of perception problems.
Now comes the revelation that Vice President Kamala Harris's chat with children about NASA was staged, featuring paid child actors.
Others used this moment to launch misogynistic attacks at the vice president. Right-wing YouTube star Stephen Crowder said of the video, “She's so unlikable that apparently they couldn't get children alone in a room with her. So these were actually child actors.” He went on to claim that Harris and Hillary Clinton “are both famous for banging rich guys.”
Here are a few other examples of exaggerated claims that floated around right-wing media, including on Fox News:
- The Fox & Friends hosts mocked Harris for hiring actors, with co-host Brian Kilmeade saying, “They hired child actors to make the vice president look good. And she is overacting. She wouldn't have passed the audition.” Co-host Ainsley Earhardt added, “She’s also nowhere to be seen on the border,” and later Fox contributor Leo Terrell said, “It’s very simply, she has no warmth. She has no sincerity. Everything is politically motivated.”
- Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner criticized the vice president over the NASA video, saying, “Vice President Kamala Harris is in the hot seat again after it was revealed that some of her passionate display of space education was made with child actors. The kids weren't actually real there. They were paid — or something.”
- On the October 12 edition of Outnumbered, co-host Emily Compagno remarked, “She pushes back, snapping at any journalist that tries to ask real questions, and now we have this — a fake video with fake kids for the very real purpose of having us buy into her authenticity.”
- America Reports’ John Roberts rhetorically asked, “You might be forgiven for thinking to yourself, so where is the video about the border, or inflation, or the supply chain crisis, or the job market, or Afghanistan, or any one of a number of myriad issues.”
- Fox chief political correspondent Bret Baier appeared on America Reports to express concerns about the video. He said: “This is quite a story politically, just embarrassing. The segment on YouTube is called Get Curious with Vice President Harris. They’re getting curious, but they're paid to do so. They are children actors, and the entertainment company that put it on — you can't make it up. The name is Sinking Ship Entertainment. So I think this is a political problem, but we’ll see how long it lasts.”
- Fox News published an online article about internet reactions to the story that featured many major right-wing figures.
- The Daily Wire published a piece titled “Kamala Harris NASA Video Features Child Actors Who Auditioned For Gig, Parent Says.”
- The Washington Times published a piece titled “‘Cringeworthy’ Harris video on NASA featured child actors.”
- The Daily Caller ran a piece called “‘My Agent Called’: Viral Kamala Harris Space Video Featured Child Actors.”
- Gateway Pundit ran a piece headlined: “She’s a Regular: Child Actor in Kamala Harris’s Space Video Starred in Video Earlier This Year with Michelle Obama.”
- Breitbart published an article titled “Kamala Harris Used Child Actors for Cringe NASA Space Video.”
- RedState published three articles on the video, including one that highlighted Candace Owens’ and Tucker Carlson’s comments.
