Scathing New Report About Dem Social Media Spending Reveals Kamala Harris Wasn’t So ‘Brat’ After All

That’s definitely not brat. 

Kamala Harris spent the early days of her campaign late last summer ruling the zeitgeist thanks to a swell of social media posts and memes that crowned her peak “brat” (yes, that was a compliment). The media ate it up and claimed it was a sign of just how popular the vice president – who had to drop out of the 2020 presidential race before a single vote was cast due to unpopularity – was among voters.

We all saw how that ultimately turned out for Harris, but a new report reveals just how artificial the whole movement actually was. On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by Ana Kasparian, host and producer of The Young Turks, to discuss the latest black eye for Harris’ failed White House bid.

‘brat Summer’

In case you hadn’t heard, 2024 was “brat Summer” thanks to the success of pop singer Charli XCX’s popular album titled brat.

Harris briefly became the poster child of the movement when social media was flooded with posts about the Democratic presidential hopeful set to Charli XCX music (the singer herself even weighed in, tweeting “kamala IS brat” after Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed his VP). One such example of the content:

The Harris campaign wholeheartedly embraced the title by changing its official X account banner to say “kamala hq” in a way that mimicked the style of the lime green brat album art with black lowercase type, while the left and corporate media lapped up what they purported to be an organic movement that proved Harris was successfully rebranding and overcoming her likability issues.

The New Report

As it turns out, the perceived enthusiasm was more astroturf than grassroots. According to a new report from Lee Fang and RealClearInvestigations, much of the pro-Kamala content was funded by “an elusive group of Democratic billionaires and major donors in an arrangement designed to conceal the payments from voters.”

RealClearInvestigations obtained internal documents and WhatsApp messages from Democratic strategists behind the influencer campaign. Fang reported a donor group called Way to Win spent more than $9.1 million on social media content during the 2024 presidential election, which included working with 550 creators to publish 6,644 posts across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and X.

The group reportedly boasted that it coached influencers on how to create and disseminate “positive, specific pro-Kamala content” that was “integral in setting the tone on the Internet and driving additional organic digital support.” 

While TV and radio ads require disclaimers that name the groups responsible for them, social media platforms do not have similar requirements for political content. That meant the creators and influencers did not have to disclose they received payment to promote election-related content.

The Hoodwink

While Megyn said it was hard to believe – even at the time – the social media content was sincere, it is still shocking to see just how much effort went into creating the illusion of support. “I mean, I’m not sure we thought it was organic,” she said. “But what we are learning more and more is that any piece of praise she got was either purchased or given under duress by people like Barack Obama.”

Fang’s report noted “Republican campaigns have spent several hundred thousand dollars on similar social media marketing agencies that tout the ability to seed content with popular accounts on X and TikTok,” but it is nowhere near the levels of Democrats in 2024.

While Kasparian said “both sides of the political aisle do this to some extent,” she believes it signifies a deeper issue with the Democratic Party. “The Democrats being obsessed with that billionaire money is what has led to them being failures in the political system,” she noted. “They need to listen to the voters and ignore the billionaires. That is how they will actually bolster their popularity, as opposed to doing whatever it was that Kamala was up to.”

The situation brought to mind a certain high school experience for Megyn. “We had a high school sorority and you had to wear this very silly outfit for the whole scrub week,” she recalled. “By the end of that week some gals who… didn’t know any better started wearing that outfit because they actually thought it had caught on.”

This was scrub week on a national stage. “People who spread the lie ‘kamala IS brat’ – that is what happened to you,” Megyn concluded. “You bought the campaign as real… and now should feel somewhat embarrassed to go back to your normal Tretorn sneakers and Palmetto jeans with the stripes in the front.” 

You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Kasparian by tuning in to episode 1,041 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.