While Harris rightly condemns Trump's failure to promptly condemn the January 6th riots and his past comments about groups like the Proud Boys, she undermines her position with quotations out of context that distort Trump's past statements, instead of sticking solely to addressing his actions regarding the Capitol attack.

1. straw man • By portraying Donald Trump as someone criminally indicted specifically for inciting a violent mob that injured law enforcement officers, she sets up a simplified and arguably misleading version of his legal situation, which makes him easier to criticize.

On that day, the president of the United States incited a violent mob to attack our nation's Capitol, to desecrate our nation's Capitol. On that day, 140 law enforcement officers were injured. And some died. And understand, the former president has been indicted and impeached for exactly that reason.

While Trump has been impeached for his role in the January 6 insurrection, he has not been criminally indicted specifically for inciting the violence on January 6 or for the injuries to law enforcement officers. The criminal indictments against him primarily focus on his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Harris's statement aligns with the broader narrative of Trump being held accountable for January 6 but overstates the precise legal situation.

Furthermore, Harris omits the fact that the impeachment was by a House majority of Democrats, and was rejected in the Senate, where seven Republicans joined all 50 Democrats in voting for impeachment, with the vote well short of passing.

We leave it to readers to decide whether the impeachment, or the opposition to it, was politically motivated by the respective sides. But the fact that, while this impeachment was happening, prosecutors in the Justice Department declined to indict Trump on the charges that Harris mentions, means that the "indicted" part of Harris' statement is a straw man.

2. quotation out of context and straw man • Just as Biden did when he debated Trump in June 2024, Harris misrepresents Trump's statement about "very fine people, on both sides" at the Charlottesville protests by omitting the context in which Trump explicitly condemned neo-Nazis and white nationalists.

Let's remember Charlottesville, where there was a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing antisemitic hate, and what did the president then at the time say? There were fine people on each side.

By implying that Trump was praising an antisemitic mob, Harris attacks a distorted version of Trump's words rather than engaging with the nuances of his actual statement. Here is Trump's quote in its original context:

Excuse me, they didn't put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group... and I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay?

3. appeal to fear via quotation out of context•  Again following Biden when he debated Trump, Harris quotes Trump out of context so as to suggest that the former President warned or threatened political violence.

Donald Trump the candidate has said in this election there will be a bloodbath, if this -- and the outcome of this election is not to his liking.

The full context wherein Trump used the word "bloodbath" is a conversation about the economic prospects of the US auto industry and auto workers:

Trump, March 16: China now is building a couple of massive plants where they’re going to build the cars in Mexico and think, they think, that they’re going to sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border...

​No. We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath, for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars.

When Trump said, "It's going to be a bloodbath for the country," he was discussing the potential economic consequences of not being elected in relation to China's car manufacturing plants in Mexico and the proposed tariffs. By omitting this context, Harris implies that Trump was referring to a violent outcome rather than an economic one, which is not supported by the full context of Trump's statement.

Furthermore, Harris inserts the quotation into a new context of January 6th and "attacking the foundations of our democracy 'cause you don't like the outcome," making it sound as if Trump's comment pertained to his own actions in challenging election outcomes -- rather than his prediction of economic outcomes in the automobile market.