Does a video show Kamala Harris saying Elon Musk "has lost his privileges" to speak freely? No, that's not true: Harris was speaking in 2019 about Donald Trump's posts on Twitter, according to a CNN transcript and video. She was discussing her call for Trump to be suspended from Twitter at the time. Harris did not mention Musk.
The claim appeared in a post published on X, formerly Twitter, by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on September 2, 2024 (archived here). It began:
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 don't police content to conform to government-approved narratives, they will be shut down.'
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Sep 3 17:19:35 2024 UTC)
In the 28-second video posted, Harris was speaking to CNN's Jake Tapper after a debate among Democratic presidential contenders on October 15, 2019, in Westerville, Ohio. The now-vice president was then a senator from California running in the presidential primary.
In the video she said:
He has lost his privileges and it should be taken down. The bottom line is that you can't say that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter. 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, and that has to stop.
Archived video from the "CNN Debate Post Analysis: Ohio" shows that Tapper asked Harris about Trump, not Musk. She responded that Trump should be banned from Twitter at 8:56 p.m. in the video. Harris says, "He has lost his privileges" at 8:57 p.m. in the video.
A CNN transcript (archived here) quotes Harris after Tapper's question about Trump:
TAPPER: 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?
HARRIS: What's important about it is this, Jake, and I say this as a former prosecutor. You have to take seriously witness intimidation. You have to take seriously an attempt to obstruct justice. You have to take seriously a threat to a witness and really to their safety and potentially their life.
And when you're talking about Donald Trump, he has 65 million Twitter followers. He has proven himself to be willing to obstruct justice. Just ask Bob Mueller. You can look at the manifesto from the shooter in El Paso to know that what Donald Trump says on Twitter impacts people's perceptions about what they should and should not do.
And we're talking about a private corporation, Twitter, that has terms of use, and as far as I'm concerned and I think most people would say, including members of Congress who he has threatened --
TAPPER: Mm-hmm.
HARRIS: -- that he has lost his privileges and it should be taken down. The bottom line is that you can't say that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter. 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, and that has to stop.
These are other Lead Stories fact checks about Kamala Harris, Donald Trump and Elon Musk. More stories about the 2024 election are here.
