A viral video shared on X claims to show 2024 Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris saying the platform’s owner Elon Musk has “lost his privileges” to free speech.

Kamala Harris: “He [Musk] has lost his privileges.”
Can someone please explain to her that freedom of speech is a RIGHT, not a “privilege”?

Kamala Harris: “There has to be a responsibility placed on these social media sites to understand their power.”
Translation: “If they… https://t.co/BzuTYoJjuV

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) September 2, 2024

Verdict: False

The claim is false. Harris made the comments in 2019 while speaking with CNN host Jake Tapper about suspending then-President Donald Trump’s Twitter account.

Fact Check:

A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll shows Harris is ahead of Trump among low-income workers, the outlet reported. According to the same poll, Harris is at 58% while Trump is at 35%, the outlet indicated.

The X video, viewed 26 million times as of writing, claims to show Harris saying Musk has “lost his privileges” to free speech. “He has lost his privileges and it should be taken down. And the bottom line is that you can’t say that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter,” Harris said, using the social media platform’s former name.

“The same rule has to apply, which is that there has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power. They are directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation. That has to stop,” she added.

The clip of Harris speaking was originally posted by the handle @ClownWorld_ and was re-shared by former 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who claimed that Harris’ comments were directed at Musk.

The claim is false. Harris’ comments are neither recent nor directed at Musk. In a Sept. 4 X post, Tapper indicated Harris’ comments come from a 2019 exchange he had with her about then-President Trump and whether or not Trump should be banned from Twitter at the time. The claim is corroborated by both a transcript and an archived video of Tapper and Harris’ exchange.

Here’s the full transcript of the 2019 exchange. We were not talking about Musk. https://t.co/MS0p8DjmO4

Here’s the archived videohttps://t.co/dDPLW2SWX3 https://t.co/vYzAQsbWUW

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) September 4, 2024

“So, one of the topics that you chose to talk a lot about, especially confronting Senator Warren on was your push, your call for Twitter to suspend the account of President Trump. Why was that important?” Tapper asks Harris. Harris makes a comment about witness intimidation and Trump proving himself “willing to obstruct justice” before offering the comment that appears in the X video as a follow-up. Harris spoke to Tapper in 2019 following a debate in Ohio. (RELATED: Did CNN Report That Tim Walz And Kamala Harris Pledged Free Costo Memberships to SNAP Recipients?)

Likewise, Check Your Fact found no credible news reports to support the claim. Actually, the opposite is true. On September 3, Lead Stories reported the claim was false, citing the same CNN transcript and archived video. Additionally, Harris does not appear to have commented on the claim.

Check Your Fact has contacted a Harris spokesperson for comment.