Rivera Did Not Say Harris Was Elected For Her Gender
The Claim
Geraldo Rivera claimed that Kamala Harris was only chosen to be Vice President because of her gender and skin color.
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Emerging story
Social media users recently directed outrage towards well-known American journalist Geraldo Rivera. According to several viral tweets, Geraldo made a compromising statement towards Vice President Kamala Harris: that she was selected to hold office simply because of her gender and skin color.
Misbar’s Analysis
We found that this claim arose due to a misleading caption that accrued hundreds of likes and shares. One post in particular vaguely mentioned that a “Fox host” made the claim, and the attached video showed Rivera during the first few seconds.
While Rivera was criticizing Vice President Harris in the video, it was for her recent political decisions regarding the U.S. border. It was his colleague, Katie Pavlich, who made the leap to say “Well, this is what happens when you choose your vice president based on gender and skin color rather than actual talent and expertise.”
Rivera immediately showed his disagreement with his fellow host’s statement, countering with “Oh, I don’t agree with that. That’s so mean. She was attorney general for the state of California, she was a United States Senator. You can’t demean her just because she disagrees with you.”
Despite the vitriol aimed at Rivera for slandering Harris, he was in fact defending her. Furthermore, although some users also claimed that Rivera is white, he has a mixed ethnic heritage.
