Social media users share a quote falsely attributed to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris that veterans need to learn to support themselves, and she plans to close the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and take away the welfare of soldiers take and give the money to refugees families. The quote appears to stem from a satire website and the vice president’s press secretary confirmed to Reuters that the quote does not belong to Harris.
“Comment from Kamala regarding VA facilities. “The US government cannot continue to pay for every need of what has become a special citizen. Veterans are equal to us, no better than. Veterans Business Cuddles Them […] Within these next four years, we will close the VA and take away the welfare of soldiers. The money saved will be better used to help refugee families. […] So, here’s a message to the soldier boys. Get a job. “,” Read a portion of the quote shared on social media posts. Captions and comments show that users take the quote seriously, including: “This is what you Democrats voted for. Are you happy ???? Because we are NOT the people ”(here); “OK, NOW I AM COMPENSED !!!” (here, here); ‘IT MAKES ME SICK. To all my military and VA family and friends. This is what they planned for you. ‘(here)
Vice President Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary, told Reuters in an email that Harris never said that. Reuters could not find any evidence of these comments on Harris’s social media channels, in ProPublica’s “Politwoops” archive, which traces deleted tweets (here), in any media reports, or on the White House website which makes statements, releases, speeches and comments made by Harris and the Biden Administration (here).
The quote is apparently on the satire website “America’s Last Line of Defense” in an article titled “Military-Hating Kamala Wants To Shut Down the VA”, where exactly the same quote appears, as seen here. The article is in a folder called ‘Kamala Spanking Satire’, the title of the site is ‘Satire for your affirmation bias’ and the site describes itself as ” a network of parody, satire and nonsense ‘, and adds’ Everything on this site is fiction. ”(Here)
On Feb. 13, before Valentine’s Day, Vice President Harris shared coffee and cookies with health workers at the VA Medical Center in Washington, DC, along with Kari McDonough and her husband, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough (here , here), as seen on Reuters photos here, here, here and here.
While Harris was elected president in September 2019, he writes a blog post, visible here, in which she promises that by the end of her first term, the VA will expand access to health care and housing assistance available to veterans with ‘other than honorable ‘dismissal and to homeless veterans, including promises designed to better support veterans (here).
Reuters recently broke down another false quote attributed to Harris about the military (here).
VERDICT
Untrue. The quote comes from a website that clearly describes itself as satire and states that everything on it is fiction.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.