The White House insisted on Tuesday that YouTube were responsible for selecting child actors to appear in Vice President Kamala Harris' widely-mocked space video produced by the Canadian firm Sinking Ship Entertainment.
According to a White House official, the vice president's office did not select the children involved in the YouTube special Get Curious with Vice President Harris, a series focused on getting kids interested in space.
Harris was tasked in May with leading the Cabinet-level National Space Council.
The same few days Harris was shooting the video at the Naval Observatory, the Taliban was beginning to take over Afghanistan and the southern border was being flooded with illegal immigrants.
Questions have emerged over whether taxpayer dollars were used to fund the video and pay the children actors who appeared alongside the vice president.
The head of Entertainment Communications at YouTube did not immediately answer a DailyMail.com call requesting comment on the series.
On Tuesday the vice president made virtual remarks before the National Congress of American Indians 78th Annual Convention – she addressed a few topics of the day but did not make mention of the controversy over her video on space exploration.
The Get Curious video, which has received a slew of criticism ranging from the vice president's mannerisms to the fact the children were hired actors, was shot at Harris' residence from August 11–13.
During that time the Taliban were making rapid advances across Afghanistan and were closing in on Kabul during the chaotic and bungled U.S. troop withdrawal.
Vice President Kamala Harris was filming a video about space with child actors on August 11-13, the same days the Taliban advanced their takeover of Afghanistan and as migrants continued to flood the southern border
Harris' office passed the buck when asked about hiring child actors for the video, claiming YouTube was in charge of the special Get Curious with Vice President Harris
During Harris' last day of filming, the Taliban had already overrun 14 of Afghanistan's 34 provincial capitals. Here Taliban fighters stand on vehicles in Herat after taking the city
Also during filming, migrants continued to flood the southern border. Here a family walks near Border Patrol in La Joya, Texas on August 13
A NASA video featuring Vice President Kamala Harris included child actors
The city of Herat, the Helmand province, and Afghanistan's second-largest city of Kandahar all fell to the Taliban on August 13. And by that time at least 14 of Afghanistan's 34 provincial capitals had been taken over by the Islamic militant group.
On August 15, two days after Harris wrapped filming, Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul was overrun by the Taliban.
The month of August also saw a massive amount of encounters at the southern border with Customs and Border Protection agents coming in contact with 208,887 migrants crossing illegally from Mexico into the U.S.
Harris was named 'border czar' earlier this year by President Joe Biden, meaning she was putVice President Kamala Harris was filming a video about space with child-actors on August 11-13, the same days the Taliban advanced their takeover of Afghanistan and as migrants continued to flood the southern border in charge of addressing the southern border crisis.
Since taking on that role, the vice president's office has redirected that she is aimed at addressing root causes in migrants' home countries that cause them to flee and seek asylum in the U.S. in the first place.
In June, Harris took her first and only trip to the U.S. side of the southern border as she visited El Paso, Texas, which is hundreds of miles away from ground zero of the border crisis in the Rio Grande Valley.
Instead of addressing the border crisis or growing threat in Afghanistan as the Taliban took over the country, in mid-August Harris was filming a promotional video called Get Curious with Vice President Harris, a series focused on getting kids interested in space.
This series is part of Harris' role heading the Cabinet-level National Space Council.
Grinning school-age children who took part in a NASA YouTube video about space exploration with Harris were revealed to be child actors on Monday.
The video, filmed in August and tweeted out by the Vice President on October 7, celebrates World Space Week.
It appeared to viewers that the children she was with were all normal American kids.
However it has now been revealed that they are paid actors from Canadian media company who auditioned by sending in a monologue and three questions they would ask a world leader.
Critics of Harris have leapt on the video, with the mockery compounded by the revelation that it was produced by Canadian company 'Sinking Ship Entertainment'.
Monterey resident Trevor Bernardino, 13, told KSBW he was stunned when he learned he would be traveling to Washington, DC to take part in the video.
'Then after that, like a week later my agent called me and was like 'Hey Trevor you booked it,' he told the network.
Trevor was one of five teens who participated in the video for the YouTube original series. He was joined by Derrick Brooks II, another child actor, Emily Kim, likewise a child actor, Zhoriel Tapo, a child actor and aspiring journalist who has interviewed former First Lady Michelle Obama, and Sydney Schmooke.
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