No, Harris didn’t call for former candidate’s deportation | Fact check

An Aug. 21 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows what appears to be a post on X, formerly Twitter, from Vice President Kamala Harris. The supposed X post includes an image of Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California and her former Republican challenger, Omar Navarro.
“The beautiful Auntie Maxine is right. MAGA Republican @realOmarNavarro needs to be deported from our country for leaving the Democrat Party many years ago,” the text of the purported post reads, referencing Navarro’s username. “This is a threat to democracy! Do NOT follow him!”
The Instagram post received more than 600 likes in six days.
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The X post is a fabrication, a Harris campaign spokesperson said. There is no record of the post on her verified account.
Navarro ran for the congressional seat held by Waters four times between 2016 and 2022, failing to win each time. Federal prosecutors in 2023 charged him with misusing campaign funds and funneling cash back to his personal account via friends and family. Navarro, who is not running in 2024, has said his prosecution is politically motivated.
But Harris did not post to X that he should be deported. The image shown in the Instagram post is “obviously fake,” campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa told USA TODAY.
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There is no record of the screenshotted post appearing on Harris’ verified X account. It is missing several key elements that would appear in a real post, including engagement metrics and the timestamp that indicates when it was shared.
Had the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee called for the deportation of a former congressional candidate from the opposing party, that action would have attracted considerable attention from her 20 million followers on the platform and legitimate media outlets. But there are no credible news reports about such a post.
Fabricated social media posts wrongly attributed to political figures have been frequent sources of misinformation. USA TODAY previously debunked false claims that Harris called a teen a “racist,” that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted about conservatives’ “misogyny and racism,” and that former President Donald Trump posted that the shooting at his Pennsylvania rally “took my entire ear off.”
USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user who shared the post but did not immediately receive a response.
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