Pretend Harris Agenda Was Created by Conservative 'Darkish Cash' Group Reportedly Backed by Musk

Within the buildup to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, a meme circulated on-line claiming an internet site posing as a Democratic agenda was in truth backed by Republican cash to destabilize the bid of Vice President Kamala Harris. The meme mentioned the group behind the web page was funded by Tesla and SpaceX proprietor Elon Musk.

Progressive media outlet Occupy Democrats posted the meme on Fb on Oct. 18, 2024 (archived).

(Fb/Occupy Democrats)

The publish had amassed greater than 12,000 reactions and 13,000 shares as of this writing. The meme additionally appeared on Instagram, Threads and X, the social media platform owned by Musk.

Additional, a Snopes reader despatched us an X post by progressive media firm MeidasTouch making the identical declare (archived).

The Meidas Contact publish, which had garnered greater than 2.5 million views as of this writing, shared a video that confirmed examples of mailers seemingly despatched by the Progress 2028 group. Purporting to help Harris, the mailers claimed she had a plan to present nonresident immigrants quick access to housing and driver’s licenses. It additionally mentioned a compulsory firearm buyback program Harris supposedly touted as certainly one of her marketing campaign guarantees.

Briefly, Progress 2028 is a faux web site and initiative that accommodates insurance policies Harris has mentioned she wouldn’t pursue. It’s backed by a conservative “darkish cash community,” generally known as Constructing America’s Future, to which Musk and different donors reportedly contributed greater than $100 million.

Progress 2028 Insurance policies Not Backed by Harris in 2024

The agenda objects listed on the Progress 2028 web site weren’t, in truth, a part of Harris’ 2024 presidential marketing campaign proposals. Snopes examined three of those coverage objects and located Harris had disavowed all of them.

For instance, the web page claimed she would ban fracking:

Kamala Harris is able to take even bolder steps. She’s dedicated to banning fracking, phasing out inside combustion engines, and rolling out probably the most progressive Inexperienced New Deal but. The way forward for our planet is determined by decisive motion, and Kamala is able to ship.

Whereas Harris mentioned she supported a fracking ban throughout her first presidential run in 2019 (archived), she has since modified her place. For instance, on Aug. 29, 2024, the vice chairman told CNN she doesn’t need to ban this technique of natural-gas extraction.

“As vice chairman, I didn’t ban fracking. As president, I cannot ban fracking,” Harris said (archived):

Because the social media posts claimed, the Progress 2028 agenda additionally included an merchandise a few obligatory gun buyback program to scale back gun violence:

Kamala will prioritize a nationwide buy-back program to get weapons off the streets and guarantee equity to all members. Her ardour for gun management is unwavering—she’s dedicated to taking daring actions that scale back gun violence and save lives, making colleges, houses, and public areas safer for everybody.

Nonetheless, Harris mentioned in the course of the Sept. 10, 2024, debate, the place she went face-to-face with former President Donald Trump, that she was a gun proprietor — a reality she had already shared in 2019 — and that she and her working mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, had no intention of confiscating firearms.

“This enterprise about taking everybody’s weapons away. Tim Walz and I are each gun house owners. We’re not taking anyone’s weapons away,” she defined on Sept. 10.

One other proposal attributed to Harris within the Progress 2028 initiative was her alleged plan to finish the “Struggle on Medicine”:

It is time to reimagine public security—one the place each particular person, irrespective of their background or earnings, can thrive. We’ll dismantle outdated insurance policies just like the Struggle on Medicine and scale back the jail inhabitants via rehabilitation and second possibilities. With daring management, we are able to create a justice system that upholds equity, alternative, and justice for all.

Nonetheless on Sept. 30, 2024, Harris declared she would in truth double the sources accessible to the U.S. Division of Justice to fight drug cartels, contradicting a Trump declare that she wished to legalize fentanyl — a strong artificial opioid liable for many overdose deaths. 

Progress 2028 Is a Pretend Initiative and Web site

An investigation by OpenSecrets — a nonpartisan group that tracks cash in politics — confirmed Progress 2028 was faux and designed to reflect Project 2025, a controversial conservative blueprint for a future Republican administration, which Snopes has analyzed intimately throughout multiple articles. OpenSecrets used paperwork filed by the organizations concerned to return to its conclusion, and Snopes was capable of finding these paperwork and independently confirm the hyperlink between Progress 2028 and conservative political motion committees.

Progress 2028 — the faux initiative and web site — acquired the backing of a “darkish cash group” generally known as Constructing America’s Future. This group was funded by conservative donors, reportedly together with Musk, as Republicans feared the unpopular Mission 2025 may scare voters from voting for Trump. Three separate investigations by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Reuters, all of which cited nameless sources aware of the state of affairs, made this connection.

Snopes was not capable of independently confirm the conclusions of these investigations, as these teams should not obligated to reveal their monetary backers underneath U.S. federal regulation. Subsequently, there is no such thing as a documentary proof accessible to verify who the donors have been. 

A site identify seek for progress2028.com revealed the web site was created on Sept. 26, 2024. OpenSecrets confirmed that three days prior, on Sept. 23, Constructing America’s Future registered Progress 2028 as a fictitious name in Virginia. (A fictitious identify is a reputation totally different from the authorized identify of a enterprise.)

Based on a form filed with the Federal Election Fee in April 2024, a girl named Generra Peck shared management of Constructing America’s Future. Peck was the manager of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2022 gubernatorial marketing campaign, and later of his failed presidential bid within the main election in opposition to Trump, which Musk initially supported. 

The identical FEC submitting confirmed that Constructing America’s Future paid cash to a company referred to as IMGE, which OpenSecrets mentioned constructed the Progress 2028 web site. Phil Cox, a longtime Republican political operative who joined a super PAC in help of DeSantis’ run for the presidency, appeared as senior companion on the IMGE website.

On Oct. 2, 2024, two separate investigations — one from The Wall Street Journal and one from Reuters — concluded Musk had given cash to Constructing America’s Future beginning in 2022. These retailers cited unnamed sources aware of the state of affairs, who, because of their anonymity, Snopes was not capable of confirm. That yr, Constructing America’s Future declared income of greater than $53 million, as seen on its 990 form to the Internal Revenue Service. The Wall Avenue Journal mentioned this was Musk’s cash, citing its sources. 

On Oct. 15, 2024, The New York Occasions reported that Constructing America’s Future was the only backer for 2 tremendous PACs, Responsibility to America PAC and Future Coalition PAC. Certainly, an FEC filing from Duty for America confirmed it had acquired $16 million from Constructing America’s Future. In the meantime Future Coalition had acquired $3 million from Constructing America’s Future, also according to an FEC filing, and OpenSecrets revealed the group had spent greater than $3.5 million. Each tremendous PACs had spent cash on IMGE.

These two tremendous PACs have been liable for a few of the most criticized conservative promoting ways to get Trump reelected. Responsibility to America PAC sought to convince younger male voters and Black voters to vote for Trump. Future Coalition PAC aired ads in Michigan underscoring Harris’ help for Israel and the truth that her husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish. Exploiting the continued conflict between Israel and Hamas, the adverts pulled from the antisemitic trope of the twin loyalty of Jews, concentrating on the battleground state’s Muslim voters in an effort to decrease their turnout for Harris.

Snopes reached out to the principals at IMGE and Constructing America’s Future, Cox and Peck, in addition to Future Coalition PAC, Responsibility to America PAC and Musk’s press crew at Tesla. We are going to replace the story ought to they reply.

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