Deceptively edited video falsely portrays Mike Pence endorsing Kamala Harris

"Drumroll please..... Pence endorses VP Harris and Governor Walz," says text over the video shared October 13, 2024 on TikTok.

The clip appears to show Pence saying: "Vote for Kamala Harris as president of the United States, or Tim Walz as her running mate, period, paragraph. And I think it's important that we understand exactly what's coming down the tracks from the other side. But in the same breath, I also think, we also need to think about who we are as conservatives.

"And between me and my former running mate, I cannot endorse President Trump's continuing assertion that I should have set aside my oath to support and defend the Constitution and acted in a way that would have overturned the election in January of 2021. I just cannot endorse this growing abandonment of our allies on the world stage that's taken hold in parts of our party. I cannot endorse ignoring our national debt that reached $35 trillion just in the last week."

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Screenshot from TikTok taken October 15, 2024

Similar posts spread the video across TikTok and other platforms, including X and Threads, as the race between Harris and Trump tightens in its final three weeks.

Numerous prominent Republicans, including former vice president Dick Cheney and his daughter, ex-congresswoman Liz Cheney, have publicly backed Harris over their party's leader. Pence, who served four years beside Trump, also said in March that he would not be endorsing his former boss in 2024.

The two grew distant after Trump tried to compel Pence to illegally overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden, a pressure campaign that resulted in a mob of Trump supporters violently storming the US Capitol -- some chanting "Hang Mike Pence" as they ransacked the building. 

But the video claimed to show Pence endorsing Harris has been misleadingly edited, omitting some remarks and stitching together others to distort what he said.

The clip comes from Pence's August 9, 2024 interview with conservative radio host Erick Erickson at an event called "The Gathering" (archived here).

In a lengthy response to a question about his views on the 2024 election, Pence said: "I saw some people the other day who have defected to the other side, who were wondering where I would come down in this campaign. Let me go on the record here at 'The Gathering.' I could never vote for Kamala Harris as president of the United States, or Tim Walz as her running mate, period, paragraph. And I think it's important that we understand exactly what's coming down the tracks from the other side. But in the same breath, I also think, we also need to think about who we are as conservatives."

The other comments featured in the altered video circulating online came about a minute and a half later and in a different order.

"I'm staying out of the presidential campaign for the reason that I just cannot endorse this growing abandonment of our allies on the world stage that's taken hold in parts of our party," Pence said. "I cannot endorse ignoring our national debt that reached $35 trillion just in the last week. I cannot support marginalizing the right to life in our party as we saw on the national platform. 

"And between me and my former running mate, I cannot endorse President Trump's continuing assertion that I should have set aside my oath to support and defend the Constitution and acted in a way that would have overturned the election in January of 2021."

AFP contacted a Pence spokesperson for comment, but no response was forthcoming.

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