Kamala Harris video doctored to slow her speech

Bill MCCARTHY / AFP USA

23 September 2024 at 2:40 pm·2-min read

A video circulating across platforms appears to show Kamala Harris slurring her words as she talks about abortion access during a campaign speech in Atlanta, Georgia. But the clip is altered, with the speed artificially slowed to make the US vice president and Democratic presidential nominee appear intoxicated, according to an AFP analysis.

"She is hammered. This is insane!" says text over a September 22, 2024 video on TikTok. "She's DRUNK!!!!!!!!!"

<span>Screenshot from TikTok taken September 23, 2024</span> — Screenshot from TikTok taken September 23, 2024

Similar posts spread the same clip across TikTok and other platforms including X, Facebook and Instagram after the Democratic presidential nominee's September 20 rally, in which she slammed Republican rival Donald Trump over an abortion ban in Georgia that she said has caused the deaths of two women.

"You know, on the other side of my -- you know, the other folks, Trump and his running mate," Harris says on stage in the footage, deepening her voice in an apparent impression of Trump and his vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance. "And they'll talk about, 'Oh, well yeah, but I, you know I do believe in the exception to save the mother's life.' OK, all right, let's break that down, shall we?"

The version circulating online purports to show her speaking the words slowly and with what sounds like a drunken slur.

But -- as with past clips that have falsely claimed to show former House speaker Nancy Pelosi stumbling over and slurring her words -- it is manipulated.

Footage of the address from the Harris campaign and C-SPAN shows the vice president uttering the same lines at a faster pace and without slurring (archived here and here).

The quote lasts about 20 seconds. The altered iteration of the clip shared online, however, stretches the same moment closer to 30.

An analysis of AFP footage from the event shows the latter version was slowed to run at approximately 80 percent of the original's speed.

AFP contacted the Harris campaign for comment, but no response was forthcoming.

AFP has fact-checked other misinformation about the 2024 election here.

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