FLASHBACK: Kamala Harris repeated a West Wing cold open to Stephen Colbert in 2023 as though it happened to her

In a recently unearthed TV appearance from 2023, Vice President Harris repeated a West Wing cold open to Stephen Colbert as though it happened to her, thinking she was talking about an episode of Veep.

During a March 15 appearance on CBS’s The Late Show, Harris told Stephen Colbert she knew he was a fan of Veep, the HBO political satire that ended in 2019, and claimed she’s a fan of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the star of the show. Harris is often compared to Louis-Dreyfus’ fictional doofus VP character even by liberal media like the Daily Show.

She then claimed she had her own Veep-like moment while working in Washington but appeared to be describing a fan-favorite episode of the West Wing.

“Last week, my team, we were having long days as usual, and a member of my team decided to do something really sweet for me. I was out of my office in the West Wing. I was having a meeting across the street, and we’re walking back toward my office, and he said, ‘I need to tell you something.’”

Harris claimed the aide said, “The winter is almost over. It’s really cold today. We haven’t lit your fireplace. So, I decided when you were in that meeting to light the fireplace.”

Harris continued, “But he forgot to open the flue,” and cackled. She then added through laughter, “So Secret Service was like, ‘Ma’am, you cannot go back to your office,’ because there was smoke everywhere.”

However, when the clip was recently posted on TikTok, fans of Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, were quick to point out that the story was similar to one in the NBC series which ended in 2006.

In the cold open of “The Leadership Breakfast” episode, White House staffers attempt to light a fire in a White House fireplace because the heat is out in the building but don’t realize the flue was welded shut until smoke fills the building. This leads to the fictional president, played by Martin Sheen, being woken up in the middle of the night and having to stand on the Truman Balcony in his underwear in the winter. 

What might be seen as simple confusion or one of Harris’ many gaffes, the difficulty has been proving the incident ever happened. Requests for confirmation of the incident that have been sent to the White House, Harris-Walz campaign, and Secret Service have gone unanswered.