Fox News Anchor Neil Cavuto Fact-Checks Trump Statement on Kamala Harris: She ‘Never’ Called Biden a Racist

Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto fact-checked the Trump campaign’s false statement on presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s running-mate pick Tuesday, stating on his afternoon program that Senator Kamla Harris (D-CA) “never” called Biden a racist.

“Not long ago, Kamala Harris called Joe Biden a racist and asked for an apology she never received,” Katrina Pierson, a Trump 2020 senior advisor, wrote in the Trump press release responding to the news and labelling Harris a “phony.”

Fox News White House correspondent John Roberts began the segment by reading out the Trump campaign statement, noting, “So the Trump campaign is playing hardball here right out of the gate with this pick of Kamala Harris.”

Roberts noted that the statement, which cast Harris as a radical, presented something of a “contradiction.”

“As a former prosecutor, if anything, Kamala Harris was getting heat from many African-Americans of the party and others because she was a little too tough on crime and that sort of thing,” Roberts said. He added that Harris had run “afoul of progressives” during her bid for the White House.

“So they’re painting her as way left of what the people in the Democratic party — but that’s the way that Trump is going to fight this campaign,” the reporter said.

Cavuto then fact-checked the Trump campaign regarding a false claim that Kamala called Biden a racist.

“By the way, the quick clarification I want to get — the president seems to be saying that Kamala Harris had called Joe Biden a racist. She never did,” Cavuto stated.

“No,” Roberts affirmed. “And again it wasn’t the president who issued this statement it was Katrina Pearson who issued the statement on behalf of the president and the president’s campaign. But clearly, in that confrontation in the debate, it was an uncomfortable moment. She did demand an apology. Whether she said the word racist or not, the intonation was there.”

While Harris did famously confront Biden on segregation at one of the Democratic presidential debates, she explicitly said she did not believe he was a racist.

WATCH: Harris says she doesn’t think Biden is a racist, but she talks directly to Biden about his having worked with segregationists on the issue of school busing. #DemDebate2 pic.twitter.com/Ytb2xvOhux

— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 28, 2019

Harris stated the following at the time:

I do not believe you are a racist and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground. But, I also believe — and it’s personal … [It] was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.

Watch above, via Fox News.