Politico’s ‘Bizarre Framing’ Provides Political Cover for Kamala Harris’s Fracking Flip-Flop
Politico tried to provide the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris with some much-needed political cover for her flip-flop on fracking over the weekend.
On Sunday, the outlet published an article about Harris’s new pledge not to ban fracking under the headline “Harris campaign pledges she won’t ban fracking after Trump accusation.” After coming under fire for its headline, Politico later dropped “after Trump accusation” from it, but kept the underlying framing inside of the story itself.
In the body of the piece, energy reporter Ben Lefebvre wrote that “Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign pledged the likely Democratic presidential nominee would not ban fracking, rejecting what it called ‘false’ accusations by Donald Trump that she would prohibit the technology if elected president.”
“The response by the Harris campaign came after the former president brought up statements Harris made during her 2019 primary run pledging to ban fracking at a Minnesota campaign rally on Saturday,” he continued, before going on to include a longer statement from the Harris campaign contending that “Trump’s false claims about fracking bans are an obvious attempt to distract from his own plans to enrich oil and gas executives at the expense of the middle class.”
Lefebvre ultimately passed no judgment on who was telling the truth about Harris’s record on fracking, but did tsk-tsk Trump for repeating “several falsehoods about the Biden administration’s energy policy.”
This was an act of journalistic malpractice — and CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski called it out.
“This is a bizarre framing — it’s not an accusation or allegation,” he wrote on X. “She said it on record numerous times in 2019. The news is that she just recently changed her position publicly.”
This is a bizarre framing — it’s not an accusation or allegation. She said it on record numerous times in 2019. The news is that she just recently changed her position publicly. https://t.co/io86ijdMa3 pic.twitter.com/BUlIcE1mtn
— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) July 29, 2024
Indeed. As Kaczynski notes, Trump didn’t make an “accusation,” he accurately recalled her campaign for the Democratic nomination back in 2020 when she declared “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking” and said she would be in favor of getting rid of the Senate filibuster to “to pass the Green New Deal,” which would also do away with fracking.
Harris is perfectly within her rights to reverse her position for political expediency’s sake (to support a ban on fracking is beyond toxic in the battleground state of Pennsylvania) just as Trump is perfectly within his rights to submit that her former position better reflects her actual preference.
But to launder Harris’s flip-flop by posing Trump’s argument as an allegation and parroting her claim that it is “false,” as Politico has, is more than a little misleading.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
