As reports came out that United States Vice President Kamala Harris was set to name Jamal Simmons as her new communications director on Jan. 6, Fox News released an extensive report of Simmons’ tweets, including posts dating back nearly a dozen years ago, on Jan. 7.
Fox News‘ hit piece read “Simmons previously hosted a news show for The Hill called ‘Why You Should Care,’ in which he aired a segment in August 2019 titled ‘Dazed & Confused poking fun at Biden for the many conflated and exaggerated stories he’s told the public over the years.”
The Fox News story also accused Simmons of tweeting his public doubt of a rushed vaccine under the President Donald Trump administration in 2020 “for political purposes.”
Though it’s common knowledge and well documented that Simmons has supported immigrants’ rights for many years, the biggest dig the outlet found on Simmons was to bring up a pair of tweets he posted from November 2010 about illegal immigrants. “Just saw 2 undocumented folks talking on MSNBC,” Simmons tweeted over 11 years ago. “One Law student, the other a protester. Can someone explain why ICE is not picking them up?”
Simmons hasn’t deleted any of his old tweets and put out a statement the same day the Fox story was published.
“As a pundit I tweeted+spoke A LOT. ” Simmons tweeted. “At times I’ve been sarcastic, unclear or plainly missed the mark. I apologize for offending ppl who care as much as I do about making America the best, multiethnic, diverse democracy+I’ll rep the Biden-Harris admin w/humility, sincerity+respect.”
He also addressed his now-infamous 2010 posts.
“For the record, I’ve never advocated for, nor believed that Dreamers should be targeted by ICE agents,” Simmons tweeted on Jan. 7. “I’ve been for DACA + comprehensive immigration reform for years. Frankly, it’s depressing ppl can forget about every other thing I’ve said in public on this bc of bad tweets.”
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