Kamala Harris was not protected by the Secret Service in 2019

The claim: Video shows Secret Service failed to protect Kamala Harris in 2023

An Instagram post from July 16 (direct link, archive link) shows a video of Vice President Kamala Harris sitting on a stage when a man approaches her and snatches the microphone from her hand.

“Ms. Harris, let this be a lesson to you that they don’t care about your life,” a narrator says in the video, which is marked as being from 2023. “Where the hell is your secret service? Someone should have been hanging on a Dorito (sic) to stop this idiot. But yeah, no one showed up until you had to remove yourself from the situation at the last minute. You’re the vice president of an entire nation and this is the reaction?”

The video was shared over 1,000 times in less than a week.

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Our rating: False

The incident occurred five years ago, when Harris was a 2020 presidential candidate, not in 2023 during her vice presidency. The Secret Service can protect key presidential candidates, but the incident occurred long before the agency would have protected them.

Incident occurred before the Secret Service protected Harris

The Instagram clip is from June 1, 2019, when Harris was a U.S. senator and running for president. Harris was being interviewed at a “Big Ideas Forum” hosted by MoveOn, a political action committee. One of the moderators was MoveOn’s then-director of public relations, Karine Jean-Pierre.

Harris was about to answer a question about the country’s gender pay gap when the protester came on stage and snatched the microphone from her. He was later identified as an animal rights activist with the organization Direct Action Everywhere, which claimed responsibility for the incident.

Jean-Pierre, now White House press secretary, and other staff members tried to grab the microphone from the man as Harris walked away. She returned after staff and audience members – including her husband, Doug Emhoff – dragged the protester off the stage.

Harris was not yet vice president at the time, so the Secret Service would not have protected her in that capacity, contrary to the claim in the Instagram post. The Secret Service does protect presidential and vice presidential candidates, but not this early in the race.

According to the Secret Service’s FAQ page, the agency has the authority to protect “major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election.” Major candidates are those designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security and an advisory committee.

The 2019 incident occurred more than a year before the 120-day deadline, so no agents would have been on the scene. Harris dropped out of the race in December 2019, also before she would have qualified for Secret Service protection.

Fact check: Video shows Kamala Harris ad during the 2019 Democratic primary campaign

Secret Service spokesman Joseph Routh told USA TODAY that the agency only began protecting Harris on August 14, 2020, after she was nominated as vice president by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Harris has enjoyed protection throughout her tenure in the White House. On July 21 She announced She ran for the 2024 presidential election after Biden dropped out of the race and supported her.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Our fact-checking sources:

Joseph Routh, July 19, telephone interview with USA TODAY
MoveOn, accessed May 9, 2019, Castro, Gillibrand, Harris, Sanders and Warren will appear at MoveOn’s Big Ideas Forum in San Francisco on June 1
MoveOn (YouTube), June 2, 2019, full video: Sen. Kamala Harris at MoveOn’s Big Ideas Forum
Secret Service, accessed July 19, Frequently Asked Questions About Us
CNN, August 17, 2020, First on CNN: Kamala Harris chooses “Pioneer” as code name for her Secret Service

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