Kamala Harris poses maskless for photo op with masked-up little girl

Vice President Kamala Harris has come under fire for sharing a distasteful photo of her, maskless, bending down to meet a young girl who was wearing a Covid mask in a stunt that several social media users have pointed out is unfair.

"My message to Black women and girls everywhere: Never ask for permission to lead," Harris tweeted on Sunday, along with an image of her grasping the hand of a small black girl donning a mask. In the photo, Harris can be seen breathing freely.

Since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, the vice president has frequently promoted the usage of masks as a means to "save lives."

In other photo-ops, Harris has even posed with masks to promote them to fellow Americans. 

Twitter commenters immediately pounced on her Sunday post to point out the glaring hypocrisy. 

"You're really forcing this child to wear a mask while you breathe freely. You're a joke," said The Post Millennial's Savanah Hernandez. 

"Kids should not have to ask for permission to show their faces and breathe freely," wrote Christina Pushaw, a Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis campaign official.

"All this picture does is remind us that you support masking children while you are unmasked yourself. You're anti-science," said former OANN host Liz Wheeler.

Despite the lack of empirical evidence to support the purported benefits of young children being made to wear masks, it seems to be commonplace for Democratic politicians to appear maskless with kids who are forced to wear them. 

Last February, failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams found herself at the center of a similar scandal when she was pictured in an elementary school classroom, seated on the floor with dozens of masked children. She, on the other hand, was maskless.

"Stacey Abrams wants state government mask mandates for Georgians and their children," said Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who beat her in the race for governor in two back-to-back elections. "But it looks like they wouldn't apply when she’s attending a photo op."

In response to the backlash, Abrams called the criticism "a false political attack."

"It is shameful that our opponents are using a Black History Month reading event for Georgia children as the impetus for a false political attack, and it is pitiful and predictable that our opponents continue to look for opportunities to distract from their failed records when it comes to protecting public health during the pandemic," a statement from the Abrams campaign reads.