advertisement
Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s campaign on Friday, 14 August, lashed out at US President Donald Trump over his claim about Kamala Harris not being a US citizen, saying that he has resorted to "abhorrent" lies, AFP reported.
Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said on Friday in a statement that Trump "has sought to fuel racism and tear our nation apart," , referring to the movement led by Trump that promoted the lie that Barack Obama was not born in the US.
"So it's unsurprising, but no less abhorrent, that as Trump makes a fool of himself straining to distract the American people from the horrific toll of his failed coronavirus response that his campaign and their allies would resort to wretched, demonstrably false lies in their pathetic desperation,” the statement went on to say, according to AFP.
Trump was referring to an article written by conservative law professor, in which he alleged that Harris didn’t meet the requirements as none of her parents were ‘naturalised US citizens’ at the time of her birth in 1964.
What exactly did Trump Say?
Are the allegations correct?
No, several US news outlets have fact-checked the article and Trump’s heresay to say that questions and allegations over Harris’ citizenship are false. Let’s first look at the facts:
So, Harris is a natural born citizen?
Yes, she is.
In 1964, Harris was born in Oakland, California. “Therefore, as a natural born citizen, she meets the Constitution's requirements to serve as vice president or president. There is no serious question about this,” says CNN.
You said Trump had many birther theories?
BBC quotes Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law School as saying that "Under section 1 of the 14th Amendment, anyone born in the United States is a United States citizen...The Supreme Court has held this since the 1890s. Kamala Harris was born in the United States."
Yes, in 2011 President Trump had speculated that former President Barrack Obama might have been born in Kenya. Even though Obama produced a birth certificate in April 2011, stating that he was born in Hawaii, Trump refused to believe it, calling Obama a “fraud”.
Later in 2016, Trump credited himself for clearing the doubt over Obama’s birth certificate, saying that "I finished it. President Obama was born in the United States. Period."
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)