Fact-check: Trump called Kamala Harris a communist and a Marxist. Pants on Fire!

Former President Donald Trump frequently derides Vice President Kamala Harris as "Comrade Kamala." He says she must be stopped to prevent the United States from turning communist or Marxist.

"She is a communist, I guess," Trump said in an Aug. 26 podcast with host Shawn Ryan, a former U.S. Navy SEAL who has praised Trump.

"I look at action, I don’t look at words," Trump said. "She is really a Marxist. Her father is a Marxist professor. … This country is not ready for a Marxist or a communist." 

Trump made similar statements in other speeches. In La Crosse, Wisconsin, he said, "She is in fact a Marxist-slash-communist." In Michigan, he said Harris "is a Marxist, just like her father" and also called her a "fascist."

Ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Trump posted a fake image showing a red-clad female leader resembling Harris addressing a red-flag waving crowd while a communist hammer and sickle flag hung overhead. Weeks later, Elon Musk, the X owner and entrepreneur who backs Trump, posted another fake image of Harris wearing red communist military garb. 

These attacks echo those of 1950s McCarthyism, when Sen. Joe McCarthy, R-Wis., led hearings on what he alleged was communist infiltration in high levels of the federal government. 

Marxism refers to the school of thought inspired by Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism. Communism is a political system of government or a party that abolishes private property. 

The attack line in 2024 could resonate with some Latino voters, including in Florida, whose families fled authoritarian regimes such as Cuba where the government seized their land and stifled dissent. 

We have rated similar attacks against congressional Democrats, Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, as False or Pants on Fire.

The case against Harris is similarly wrong. Her policies do not amount to communism or Marxism, political science experts said.

"Nearly all examples of communism in power came about through a violent revolution against the existing order and resulted in the abolition of private property, state takeover of the economy, one party, undemocratic rule, the crushing of dissent, and the loss of civil liberties and civil society institutions like a free press," Baruch College sociology and anthropology professor Ted Henken said.

Asked for evidence to support Trump’s claim that Harris is communist, the Trump campaign singled out her position on price controls.

"Kamala Harris has literally suggested price controls as a matter of economic policy," Trump campaign spokesperson Caroline Sunshine told PolitiFact. "Would encourage you to inspect the well documented list of Marxist and communists who've suggested the same."

In an Aug. 16 speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, Harris said, "I will work to pass the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food." That would require buy-in from Congress.

Harris called for "new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules" and said she favors more support for smaller food companies. But Harris has been vague about the details.

In social posts and campaign website materials, Trump refers to Harris’ plan as "Soviet-style price controls."

The Trump campaign pointed to a column written by Washington Post opinion writer Catherine Rampell, headlined: "When your opponent calls you ‘communist,’ maybe don’t propose price controls?" (Rampell has also criticized Trump’s economic ideas.)

We sent the Trump campaign’s evidence to academics with expertise in Marxism or communism, including those with expertise in Latin America or the former Soviet Union. We noted examples we found of Harris showing support for people owning their own homes or businesses — basically the opposite of calling for government takeovers. No expert called her a communist or Marxist. 

Harris supports conventional welfare state capitalism, in which the government regulates the market while respecting private property and economic rights, Henken said. 

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"Her positions on health care, the reigning in of price gouging, and assistance to home buyers and small businesses all presuppose the existence of a robust capitalist market-driven economy," Henken said. "They only seek to make the availability of certain capitalist goods more fair and affordable. In a communist system, such goods would be controlled and provided by the government, not owned or controlled privately."

Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute and anthropology professor at Florida International University, said "a communist or Marxist person is someone who supports the state ownership of the means of production, usually controlled by a single political party."

But Harris hasn’t expressed such a position, Duany said. "Nor has her political platform endorsed anything akin to the economic and political system in Cuba since 1959," he said.

When we asked Harris’ campaign about Trump’s claims, spokesperson Ammar Moussa said, "She is a capitalist."

Harris’ interest in tackling price gouging, which her critics see as interfering in the free market, has precedent — but mostly among Republicans. President Richard Nixon announced in 1971 "a freeze on all prices and wages throughout the United States." 

When Harris was a senator from California running in the Democratic presidential primary in 2019, she took some stances favored by the left wing of her party. Harris then backed the Green New Deal, a blueprint for environmental policy changes, and Medicare for All, which would have established a national health insurance program administered by the federal government (private insurers could continue to operate, but only to offer supplemental coverage). She has pursued neither policy as vice president and has not touted them on the 2024 campaign trail — and even if she had, that doesn’t mean she is a communist.

"The positions she has taken on some issues are left-wing, but hardly communist," said Harvey Klehr, retired Emory University historian who has written books about communism. 

Anna Grzymala-Busse, a Stanford University political science professor and expert on post-communist politics, told us by email that Harris’ positions don’t make her a communist or Marxist.

"Both of the mainstream American political parties are to the right of the most conservative mainstream parties in Europe, where *right-wing* parties support national health care systems, subsidized university educations, public housing, and far greater taxation,"  Grzymala-Busse said.

Communist regimes had planned economies in which all prices and quantities were set by the government. 

"Price controls may be misguided, but they are *not* communist," Grzymala-Busse said. "Price controls can distort free markets: Communism does away with them. There is simply no comparison."

Harris’ father, Donald Harris, is a retired Stanford University economics professor.

In a July 25 profile, The Economist magazine said Donald Harris’ work "is more unashamedly Marxist than anything in modern American politics." The magazine said his 1978 book, "Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution," focused on economic inequality, growth and the downside of profit-seeking capitalist economies.

Some other news outlets, including Fox News, said the Stanford Daily newspaper in 1974 called Harris a "Marxist." (The New Yorker magazine wrote that Donald Harris is estranged from his daughter.)

We contacted the elder Harris at his Stanford email address and received no reply. But even if calling him a Marxist were reasonable, it does not mean that his daughter holds identical views.

Trump said Harris "is a communist. … She is really a Marxist."

Four experts we interviewed answered unanimously: She is neither.

The Trump campaign pointed to Harris’ plan to ban price gouging by applying price controls. That proposal — which is short on details — has been criticized as ill-advised, including by some liberals. But its scope falls far short of communist policy, which advocates a political system of government or a party that abolishes private property. Harris has not called for seizing private homes or businesses.

Harris’ campaign describes Harris’ stance as capitalist, not Marxist, and experts say her policies are based on the assumption of a market-driven economy. Her issue portfolio consists of mainstream left-of-center views, and would be uncontroversial even among right-of-center parties in Europe.

When Trump calls Harris a communist, it evokes fear in Americans who fled authoritarian communist regimes. Neither her past nor current positions reveal Harris, the U.S. vice president for the last four years, to be communist.  

We rate this statement Pants on Fire!

PolitiFact Copy Chief Matthew Crowley contributed to this fact-check.