Get PolitiFact in your inbox.

Ciara O'Rourke
By Ciara O'Rourke October 12, 2023

Kamala Harris was a senator, not vice president, during this confrontation with a protester

If Your Time is short

  • Vice President Kamala Harris was a U.S. senator from California when a protester confronted her at a 2019 event.

A recent Instagram post criticizes the Secret Service for failing to protect Vice President Kamala Harris, but the video in question was filmed more than a year before she took office in her current role. 

"Where are the Secret Service??" reads text above the video. "Protestor steals mic from Kamala Harris."

The video shows someone coming onto a stage where Harris is sitting and snatching her microphone. Harris gets up and walks away. 

"You’re the vice president of a whole nation, and this is the response?" a person can be heard saying in the video. "This how long it took?"

An Oct. 9 Instagram post sharing the video was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Featured Fact-check

This incident happened in June 2019, when Harris was still a U.S. senator from California and running for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2020 election. 

She was appearing at MoveOn’s Big Ideas Forum in San Francisco when an animal rights protester jumped onstage. Security also got onstage as Harris walked away from the protester, CNN reported, and Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, wrested the microphone back from the man. 

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was also running for president at the time, told CNN: "I’m really hoping that we see Secret Service and others begin to step in because that really could have been a horrifying moment." 

But claims this happened when she was vice president are False.

 

Our Sources

Browse the Truth-O-Meter

More by Ciara O'Rourke

Kamala Harris was a senator, not vice president, during this confrontation with a protester

Support independent fact-checking.
Become a member!

In a world of wild talk and fake news, help us stand up for the facts.

Sign me up