Alex Bruno
In a stunning revelation that shocked exactly no one, NBC’s fact-checkers have determined that Vice President Kamala Harris lied an impressive 29 times during her recent debate with former President Donald Trump. This tally has left many asking: has Harris mastered the art of deception, or has she simply turned lying into a form of high-stakes performance art?
What makes this revelation particularly intriguing is not the number of falsehoods themselves—let’s be real, political debates are basically the Super Bowl for professional fibbers—but the way Harris wielded these lies with finesse. “She’s good at lying,” said one NBC fact-checker, who asked to remain anonymous due to fear of being fact-checked themselves. “It’s like watching a seasoned magician. You know it’s all smoke and mirrors, but you can’t help but be impressed by the execution.”
The night started innocently enough, with both Harris and Trump striding onto the debate stage in Philadelphia, flashing smiles and awkwardly shaking hands. But according to NBC’s fact-checkers, the real action began about 12 seconds into Harris’s opening statement.
“Our Lie-O-Meter actually short-circuited before she finished her first answer,” one technician reported. “It’s never happened before. Usually, politicians warm up to their dishonesty, but Kamala jumped in headfirst like she was late to a meeting with the truth police.”
The first notable lie came when Harris bragged about the size of her rally crowds—an area where even her supporters know she’s had some, let’s say, “intimate” gatherings. “People love coming to my rallies,” she said confidently. “They’re packed every time!” Fact-checkers immediately flagged this, as most of Harris’s events have been about as full as an early-morning yoga class in a sleepy suburb.
But Harris wasn’t just content to fudge the numbers on her rally sizes. Oh no, she also took the opportunity to make the baffling claim that Americans have been thrilled with the Biden administration’s handling of inflation. “Inflation?” she scoffed. “That’s been totally under control. Americans have never been better off.” NBC’s fact-checkers, meanwhile, began clutching their calculators like lifeboats in a stormy sea.
While Harris was busy spinning tales, Trump, ever the opportunist, jumped at every chance to defend himself against her jabs. It was classic Trump: loud, unapologetic, and mostly concerned with his rally crowd sizes—which, for the record, he swore were “the biggest, the best, like you’ve never seen.”
But here’s where Harris’s skill as a professional truth-bender truly shone. Instead of letting Trump control the narrative, she expertly guided him off course with a series of well-placed lies, each designed to distract him from hammering her on policy.
Take, for example, the moment when Trump launched into his usual spiel about his border wall. Harris cut in with a smirk and said, “Oh please, Donald, we all know the wall was just a metaphor.” Trump, looking baffled, paused long enough for Harris to slip in a comment about how his rallies now end with people leaving early out of “boredom and exhaustion.” Fact-checkers had to pause and remind themselves to focus on her lies, not Trump’s increasingly bewildered expression.
“She’s like a political ninja,” marveled one fact-checker. “Every time Trump tried to land a blow, she’d just deflect with another lie and get him to talk about something irrelevant.”
Throughout the night, Harris displayed an almost artistic approach to misinformation. Whether she was claiming that Trump personally installed “Trump abortion bans” across the country (which, for the record, is not an actual legal term) or suggesting that his tariffs were a form of “Trump sales tax,” the fact-checkers could barely keep up.
“She has this incredible ability to make things up and sound like she believes them,” said one debate analyst. “It’s not so much that she’s lying—it’s that she’s convincing when she lies. It’s like watching someone tell a bedtime story, except instead of putting you to sleep, you’re left wondering whether you’ve accidentally woken up in a parallel universe.”
Harris’s pièce de résistance came when she accused Trump of inviting the Taliban to Camp David for “weekend retreats” during his presidency. While there was some truth to the fact that Trump had considered hosting peace talks at the historic presidential retreat, the idea of weekend barbecues with the Taliban seemed, let’s say, a bit far-fetched. Nonetheless, Harris sold the idea with such conviction that for a brief moment, even Trump looked confused.
For the viewers at home, the debate was less about policy and more about spectacle. “It felt like I was watching two people compete in some kind of lying Olympics,” said one viewer. “At one point, I just gave up trying to figure out what was true and started grading them on creativity.”
NBC’s audience poll showed that while some were turned off by the sheer volume of misinformation, others were strangely impressed by Harris’s performance. “I mean, sure, she lied a lot,” said one respondent, “but it was entertaining, you know? It’s not every day you see a politician lie so confidently that you almost start to believe them.”
To be fair, Trump wasn’t exactly batting a thousand when it came to honesty, either. Fact-checkers noted that while he didn’t match Harris’s 29 lies, he managed to squeeze in a respectable 15. But whereas Harris’s lies were sleek, sharp, and delivered with precision, Trump’s were more… well, Trump-like.
From claims about immigrants abducting pets in Ohio to defending his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic as “flawless,” Trump’s lies were the verbal equivalent of throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping something sticks. And while that strategy may have worked for him in the past, this time, it was no match for Harris’s polished brand of deception.
When asked to respond to NBC’s findings that she lied 29 times during the debate, the Harris campaign offered a response that was, fittingly, both defensive and evasive. “The Vice President remains committed to telling the American people what they need to hear, even if it sometimes involves… adjustments to the facts,” a campaign spokesperson said, dodging the question like a seasoned pro.
NBC’s fact-checkers, meanwhile, have begun referring to the debate as the “Liar’s Ball,” with one observer summing it up best: “It wasn’t so much a debate as it was a battle of who could lie better. And honestly, Kamala was good at it.”
As the 2024 election rumbles forward, it remains to be seen whether Harris’s ability to lie with such grace and confidence will serve her well or backfire spectacularly. But one thing is certain: if debates are about who can dominate the stage—truth be damned—Kamala Harris might just be unbeatable.
