This week, Donald Trump called for a “major investigation” into former Vice President Kamala Harris’ celebrity endorsements during her 2024 presidential campaign. Trump suggested that Harris illegally paid for the endorsements. Trump provided no evidence to back up his claims. Some of the celebrities Trump has named have come forward to deny receiving any type of payment. Experts have chimed in to say that there isn’t any FEC law that bars candidates from paying for endorsements.
Trump Makes an Accusation
Trump suggested that the endorsements of Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, and Oprah Winfrey were all paid for by Kamala Harris’s campaign. Each of the celebrities appeared at events for Harris while she was running for president. “Candidates aren’t allowed to pay for ENDORSEMENTS, which is what Kamala did, under the guise of paying for entertainment,” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Monday.
During her campaign, Kamala Harris used and paid for production companies that are owned by Winfrey, Springsteen, and Beyoncé for services supplied for her campaign. Winfrey and Beyoncé’s mother, who runs Beyoncé’s production company, have both clarified that payments were for the production costs for the events they worked.
FEC Has No Rule Against Payments
Campaign law experts say that the “Federal Election Commission has no regulations against federal campaigns paying celebrities or influencers for endorsements, nor would they be considered illegal contributions as Trump suggested — as long as those payments are properly disclosed. The Federal Trade Commission oversees disclosure obligations for paid endorsements,” the experts told ABC News.
Finance disclosures by Kamala Harris’s campaign disclosed that the campaign did pay Winfrey’s Harpo Productions $1 million on October 15, 2024, for “event production.”
“I did not take any personal fee. However, the people who worked on that production needed to be paid and were. End of story,” Winfrey said in a video she shared on social media after Trump made the public accusations.
Beyonce’s Mother Speaks Out
Parkwood Production, Media LLC, Beyoncé’s production company, received a payment of $165,000 on November 19, 2024. The payment was made by Harris’s campaign weeks after Beyoncé appeared at a campaign event in Houston where she endorsed Harris.
Tina Knowles, Beyoncé’s mother, shared a video in which she called the accusations against her daughter “a lie.” She also said that Beyoncé paid for her plane tickets to and from the event. Harris’ campaign divulged that it paid Springsteen’s production company $75,000 for “travel and event production.” The payment was made on November 19, 2024. Springsteen has not responded to the accusations.
Claims Unfounded Against Kamala Harris
As unfounded claims were made last year about Harris’ campaign paying for celebrity endorsements, senior campaign advisor Adrienne Elrod said, “We do not pay. We have never paid any artist or performer. We have never paid a fee to that person.”
Rules from the FEC require any campaign to pay fair market value for the costs to hold an event. Elrod said that Kamala Harris’s campaign had paid “for any ancillary costs for that performance” and that “there are laws that have to be followed that we have followed religiously on this campaign.”
