00:03:22.780The Washington Post confirmed that one copy of Harris' book that was donated, not included in, quote, welcome kits, that was in that now viral photo.
00:03:32.480And that one photo was the basis for the entire fabrication that Harris' books were being included in welcome kits?
00:03:38.280and the insinuation from Republican elected officials that Harris was personally making a profit from the situation at our border.
00:03:46.680The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement to Newsweek
00:03:50.260that the referenced book was one of an assortment of hundreds of titles donated to the Long Beach emergency intake site
00:03:55.680as part of a City of Long Beach new books and toys drive.
00:03:59.360No taxpayer dollars were used to purchase Vice President Harris's book.
00:04:03.180Kevin Lee, chief public affairs officer for the city,
00:04:06.240also clarified that the city had no involvement in the book's curation.
00:04:09.560It was just donated as part of their book and toy drive.
00:04:12.420The city of Long Beach, in partnership with the Long Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau,
00:04:16.400had a citywide book and toy drive that is ongoing to support the migrant children, he said.
00:04:20.940The single book you referenced is one of hundreds of various books that have already been donated.
00:04:25.400The book was not purchased by HHS or the city.
00:04:29.580Now, after the story was debunked, the reporter who wrote it, Laura Italiano, resigned, admitting that she'd been pressured into writing it, saying,
00:04:37.700The Kamala Harris story, an incorrect story I was ordered to write and which I failed to push back hard enough against, was my breaking point.
00:04:45.460Now, the New York Post has not even officially retracted the story.
00:04:49.420Instead, they temporarily removed it from their site and then republished it with an editor's note at the bottom, saying,
00:04:55.800the original version of this article said migrant kids were getting Harris's book in a welcome kit.
00:05:01.200But that has been updated to note that only one known copy of the book was given to a child.
00:05:06.020This is completely insufficient when you consider the lie is already out there.
00:05:10.180And all of those prominent Republican figures I told you about earlier,
00:05:13.420their tweets are still up on Twitter as of me recording this episode.
00:05:17.340And here's why it's not really about this one lie.
00:05:20.960The data is clear that women of color, especially Black women in politics,
00:05:24.640face a disproportionate amount of disinformation,
00:05:27.640especially lies and attacks that rely on negative stereotypes about our gender and race.0.95
00:05:32.640They paint us Black women as untrustworthy liars0.97
00:05:34.960and rely on unfair attacks on our identities to fuel those lies.1.00
00:05:39.480Even before Harris was named as Biden's running mate,0.99
00:05:42.060she was subjected to a flood of racist, sexist disinformation on social media,0.96
00:05:45.700like posts that made racist claims that she wasn't even eligible to serve in the White House
00:05:49.460or that she was lying about her Black and Indian heritage.
00:05:53.100Intelligent software service Zignal Labs found over 1 million mentions of Harris on Twitter since June 2020
00:05:59.300that had hashtags or terms associated with misinformation about her.0.53
00:06:03.980Now compare that to her white male counterparts.0.72
00:06:06.720Misinformation accounted for less than 1% of Twitter talk when Mike Pence and Tim Kaine were running for vice president.
00:06:12.100While misleading information about Harris is much more prevalent, making up more than 4% of the conversation about her on Twitter.