Video of Harris calling a voter while the camera app is open does not prove she faked a call

Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise visit to a Washington, D.C., Democratic National Committee phone bank on Election Day. Harris was handed a phone to speak with a voter, a moment that went viral as social media users questioned the interaction.

An Instagram user shared the clip of Harris with the caption, “#KamalaHarris pretends to talk to voter on the phone, forgets she’s FAKING IT and holds her phone up, revealing her CAMERA APP open.”

(Screenshot from Instagram.)

The video was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

The clip went viral with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and former President Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump reposting it on X saying it shows that Harris faked the phone call.

In the full video Harris is handed a phone that she answers by saying, “Alexandria, it’s Kamala Harris … Have you voted already? You did, thank you!” The audience erupts in applause and Harris faces the phone towards the crowd, showing that the camera app is open.

But the clip is not proof that the phone call was staged, as social media users said. iPhones can run other apps during a call, according to the iPhone user guide for operating systems 12 to 18.

We tried it ourselves on an iPhone and successfully made a call while the camera app was open.

In the rest of the full video, Harris talks to other voters on speaker phone. Other people’s voices can be heard while the phone app is open.

We rate the claim that a video of Harris talking to a voter on the phone is fake because the camera app was on False.

PolitiFact Staff Writer Maria Ramirez Uribe contributed to this report.