Harris’s love of Doritos at orchestrated Sheetz stop draws skepticism

Vice President Kamala Harris made a stop at a Sheetz gas station convenience store while campaigning in Pennsylvania on Sunday, and some critics are questioning the authenticity of her new obsession with the popular Doritos brand after two different videos began circulating on social media.

“Every road trip needs a snack break. Doritos acquired. I got you, @KamalaHarris,” her running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) said in a social post with a video of him finding a bag of Doritos and handing it to her while at the Sheetz store.

Another video circulated of Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, the second gentleman, finding the Doritos bag first and handing it to her moments after entering the store.

In the video of Walz handing her the Doritos bag, Emhoff is seen holding a Doritos bag while standing next to the vice president in an aisle, which has some critics speculating that Harris was filmed getting Doritos twice.

“CAUGHT: The Kamala Doritos thing at Sheetz was so fake they filmed it twice, once with Doug, once with Tim. Notice on the ‘official’ clip Tim ‘finds’ her a bag but she’s already holding one. She forgot to put it down. Totally scripted,” one person on social media claimed, posting a montage of Harris getting Doritos with Walz and separately from Emhoff.

Donald Trump Jr., son of Harris’s presidential election rival and former President Donald Trump, mocked Harris and Walz on social media.

“Weird and cringe,” he said in his posting of Harris grabbing a Doritos bag from Walz.

“Everything they do is fake. Nothing is genuine,” another person said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“Did Kamala Harris just Google ‘most popular chip in America’ and click on the first result to launch her newfound obsession with Doritos or as she calls them ‘Door-Eat-Ohs’? She’s mentioned them twice in the past three days now,” another critic chimed in.

The Harris campaign stop at Sheetz coincided with the convenience store chain being in the middle of a federal lawsuit from the Biden administration for allegedly discriminating against minority job applicants. When President Joe Biden was campaigning as the leading Democratic presidential candidate in April, he also did a photo op at a Pittsburgh-area Sheetz store before his administration hit the company with the lawsuit.

Trump 2024 deputy communications director Caroline Sunshine remarked that no members of the press asked Harris any questions and called it overall “an odd video.”

“What an odd video — looking for a bag of Doritos. I’m not sure Kamala Harris can tell you what the price of a bag of Doritos is,” Sunshine said on Fox News on Monday.

The viral video of Harris’s Sheetz stop also follows her campaign releasing a fundraising email on Friday that tells the story of the vice president eating a family-sized bag of nacho Doritos after former President Donald Trump won in 2016.

“I went home and I sat on the couch with a family-sized bag of nacho Doritos,” Harris said in the the campaign email.

“I did not share one chip with anybody,” Harris continued in the fundraising email. “Not even [my husband] Doug [Emhoff]. I just watched the TV with utter shock and dismay. Two things are true eight years later: I still love Doritos and we still have not stopped fighting.”

Former Fox News personality Elizabeth Hasselbeck ripped Harris for binge-eating Doritos in 2016 over Trump’s win.

“That’s the emotional response of the leader of the free world? To binge eat a bag of Doritos? Are you kidding me?” Hasselbeck said. “Can you imagine Putin, how he deals with things? Chugging down a bag of Sour Patch Kids because he’s depressed about something not going his way?”

On the Republican presidential campaign side, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), has received criticism from Harris supporters for enjoying Diet Mountain Dew. During Trump’s press conference on Thursday, Trump talked about enjoying Cheerios.