Republicans insisted that Democrats conducted an elaborate scheme to deceive voters after Beyoncé failed to appear at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
The singer was widely rumored to make a surprise performance at the DNC, just before Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepted her party’s nomination Thursday night.
When the last night of the Democratic gathering came and went with no Beyoncé, some members of the Right surmised Democrats simply wielded a deceptive marketing strategy designed to draw in more viewers for Harris’s prime-time speech.
“Kamala Harris is so bad at this her own party had to lie and tell attendees Beyoncé was coming so people wouldn’t bail before Harris’s speech and leave a bunch of empty seats for the cameras,” Sean Davis, the conservative CEO and co-founder of the Federalist, complained in a post to X. Davis formerly worked for Rick Perry, the one-time Republican governor of Texas, and Tom Coburn, who served as a GOP senator from Oklahoma from 2005 to 2015.
Kamala Harris is so bad at this her own party had to lie and tell attendees Beyoncé was coming so people wouldn’t bail before Harris’s speech and leave a bunch of empty seats for the cameras. Amazing. https://t.co/tnFap6tXsW
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) August 23, 2024
Although there is no direct evidence behind the theory that Harris’s allies lied about the surprise guest appearance, other Republicans jumped on board with the claims and aired their grievances on social media.
CJ Pearson, a political activist who heads the Republican National Committee’s Youth Advisory Council, slammed the vice president for getting “far too comfortable lying.”
Right-wing media personality and former Project Veritas operative Laura Loomer declared similar concerns in a rant to X.
“The Democrats intentionally lied tonight and said that [Beyoncé] was going to be the special guest at the DNC to get people to watch,” Loomer contended as she claimed, “Democrats lied to boost viewership.”
The White House’s political director appeared to tease the artist’s appearance in a post on X, later saying her 6-year-old “took my phone” to send out the social media message.
“They planted the story with TMZ too,” Loomer alleged, referring to an article by the entertainment site that claimed to confirm the artist was appearing at the DNC. The outlet later apologized for the false report, saying, “We got this one wrong.”
The Democrats intentionally lied tonight and said that Beyoncé @Beyonce was going to be the special guest at the DNC to get people to watch.
They planted the story with TMZ too.
Beyoncé didn’t show up.
There wasn’t even a special guest tonight as promised.
Democrats lied…
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) August 23, 2024
Beyoncé’s hit song “Freedom” has become the unofficial anthem for the Harris camp, which has used it at numerous rallies and in ad campaigns.
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Harris walked onstage as the song played and crowds roared Thursday night. But, as the pop icon’s publicist confirmed in a post to Instagram, there was no live performance planned from Beyoncé that night.
The Grammy Award winner endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020 but has to back the vice president this election cycle.