The media's sudden rejection of Kamala Harris' 'border czar' label

There's been a dramatic push by the legacy media to neutralize one of Vice President Kamala Harris' biggest vulnerabilities since becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee: her longstanding "border czar" label.

Harris was widely dubbed the "border czar" after President Biden tasked her in March 2021 to address the root causes of mass migration from Central and South America. While the Biden administration has rejected the title, the term was widely used by her critics and even embraced by multiple news organizations, at least until she ascended to the top of the ticket. 

Axios went viral Wednesday with its report about the "border confusion" that has haunted Harris, telling readers "the Trump campaign and Republicans have tagged Harris repeatedly with the 'border czar' title — which she never actually had."

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However, critics cited Axios' own reporting from 2021 saying that Biden had appointed Harris "border czar." Axios later added an editor's note stating "This article has been updated and clarified to note that Axios was among the news outlets that incorrectly labeled Harris a ‘border czar’ in 2021."

"The propaganda press working so hard to erase the fact that Kamala Harris was put in charge of the border shows not only what a vulnerability her role in the border is but also what a huge vulnerability her general incompetence is," The Federalist editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway reacted on X.

CNN had a similarly drastic change of heart. CNN correspondent Ed Lavandera and CNN commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin both referred to Harris as the "border czar" in 2021 and 2023, respectively. 

This week, the network repeatedly rebuked the label. 

"The Biden team didn't declare her the border czar," CNN's Kasie Hunt said Wednesday morning. "They wanted her to work on kind of the root causes of immigration."

"What [former President Trump] said about Harris and immigration was not true. She was never appointed border czar," fellow CNN anchor John Berman also said Wednesday. 

Fox News Digital asked multiple news organizations, including CNN and Axios, to explain their vocal shift away from the "border czar" label for Harris. None responded to the inquiries. 

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MSNBC host Symone Sanders, who previously served as Harris' chief spokeswoman in the Biden administration before joining the network, lumped in the border czar claims against her former boss with "misinformation" about the VP.

"People are going to have to challenge the misinformation," Sanders said on "Morning Joe" Wednesday. "You already hear folks talking about the 'border czar.' She wasn't the 'border czar.' She did diplomacy in Central America, but the campaign is going to have to make that case."

A clip went viral of left-wing media figure Ron Filipkowski previously calling Harris "the border czar" on MSNBC, after he posted on social media that Axios was incorrect to use the term.

ABC's Jonathan Karl sang from the same sheet of music, saying "She wasn't the border czar. That's what Republicans labeled her. She was given the job of dealing with all the migration that was coming up from Central America. But they will portray her as the one that was in charge of the border, which of course is issue No. 1 for Republicans."

CBS News pushed back on the label with multiple segments dedicated to the subject on its streaming channel. 

"Vice President Harris was not a border czar," CBS anchor John Dickerson declared in one of the segments before a correspondent elaborated on what her role was. 

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Media "fact checkers" rushed to defend Harris. PolitiFact gave the claim from the RNC that as border czar Harris was "put in charge of stopping illegal immigration" a "Mostly False" rating. USA Today similarly ruled it "false" to say she was "put in charge of the border" and that her role was "more limited" than what a border czar would do. 

Several other outlets also bent over backwards to separate Harris from the label. TIME Magazine ran the headline "Kamala Harris Was Never Biden’s ‘Border Czar.’ Here’s What She Really Did," calling the label "misleading" while admitting it had become a "political liability." 

NPR said conservatives "made up the inaccurate term ‘border czar,’" insisting the role of controlling the border belongs to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The Washington Post accused the Trump campaign of "falsely branding her the nation's ‘border czar'" in a campaign ad. 

The New York Times got ahead of other news organizations, printing the headline "Why Republicans Keep Calling Kamala Harris the ‘Border Czar" on July 17, four days before Biden announced his exit from the race. 

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"Ms. Harris was not, in fact, appointed border czar, nor was she tasked with addressing the broader problems plaguing the border itself," the Times wrote last week. "Rather she was deputized by President Biden with the diplomatic mission of solving the ‘root causes’ of migration from countries like Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, tackling the issues that spur people to flee in the first place, like drug violence and lack of economic opportunity."

Fox News' Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.