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Falsehoods about citizenship status, racial identity resurface online as Kamala Harris becomes likely Democratic nominee
Not long after President Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, false claims targeting her began resurfacing on social media.
Many of the falsehoods have followed her for years and focus on her citizenship status, racial identity and political achievements. Here are some of the claims.
Daniel Steinle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
False claims that Harris’ foreign-born parents make her ineligible to run resurface
Shortly after the president’s endorsement, a false narrative claiming the fact Harris’ parents were not born in the U.S. makes her ineligible to hold office recirculated on social media. Posts pushing the claims received millions of views.
Harris was born in Oakland, California, to Jamaican and Indian immigrants. The fact that her parents are immigrants does not disqualify her from serving as vice president or president.
False claims about Harris’ citizenship were a flashpoint last time she was on the ticket. Some have used an op-ed, written by pro-Trump lawyer John Eastman and published in Newsweek in 2020, to promote the argument that the Constitution does not grant citizenship to children of people born outside of the United States. An editor’s note later appended to the opinion states: “All of us at Newsweek are horrified that this op-ed gave rise to a wave of vile Birtherism directed at Senator Harris.”
Critics baselessly doubt Harris’ race
Another thread once again being promoted on social media is the false narrative that Harris is lying about being Black.
Social media users falsely claimed that a photo of Harris standing between a man and a woman, said to be her parents, is “proof” that her father isn’t Black. The photo, which spread in 2020, is not of Harris’ parents.
Some have also claimed that because her father is from Jamaica, Harris is not Black. The vast majority of Jamaica’s population has African heritage since the British brought enslaved Africans to the island in the 18th century.
When asked on a radio show in 2019 about the false claims about her race, Harris said that these are people trying to “sow hate and division among us.”
“I’m Black, and I’m proud of being Black,” she said. “I was born Black. I will die Black, and I’m not going to make excuses for anybody because they don’t understand.”
Harris’ father previously said he is a descendent of an Irish-born slave owner. Experts interviewed by PolitiFact said that she is most likely a descendent of both enslaved people and a slave owner.
Manipulated audio and visuals clips of Harris spread online
Social media users have also posted out-of-context or manipulated videos and audio clips that attempt to paint Harris as addled or rambling.
A video of Harris, which was digitally altered to make it appear that she had rambled incoherently in a 2023 speech at Howard University, took on a new life on Sunday when audio from the clip racked up millions of views on TikTok.
“Today is today and yesterday was today yesterday,” the voice in the clip says. “Tomorrow will be today tomorrow, so live today so the future today will be as the past today as it is tomorrow.”
The video and audio were digitally altered and there is no evidence she said this. TikTok said it is removing the audio clip because it violates the platform’s policies.
In another instance of edited media, a photo superimposing Jeffrey Epstein’s face on Harris’ husband’s was used to falsely claim Harris was associated with the convicted sex offender.
Another video of Harris circulating wasn’t edited, but was taken out of context. In it, Harris says, “I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her. I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.” Harris was describing her appearance for the benefit of some members of the meeting who were blind. Elon Musk posted the video on his platform X, captioned “imagine 4 years of this.” The post got over 135 million views.
Nina Jankowicz, disinformation researcher and founder of the American Sunlight Project, advised users to pause when seeing outrageous narratives about Harris on social media.
“If you feel yourself getting emotional and in this case, it might be shock or disgust, that’s a good indication that you’re probably being manipulated,” Jankowicz said. “It’s just a fact that the more emotional, salacious, enraging narratives on social media are often the most engaging narratives and the people who are spreading them know that.”
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have required new cars to beep at drivers if they exceed the speed limit in an effort to reduce traffic deaths.
California would have become the first to require such systems for all new cars, trucks and buses sold in the state starting in 2030. The bill would have mandated that vehicles beep at drivers when they exceed the speed limit by at least 10 mph.
The European Union has passed similar legislation to encourage drivers to slow down. California’s proposal would have provided exceptions for emergency vehicles, motorcycles and motorized scooters.
In explaining his veto, Newsom said federal law already dictates vehicle safety standards and adding California-specific requirements would create a patchwork of regulations.
The National Highway Traffic Safety “is also actively evaluating intelligent speed assistance systems, and imposing state-level mandates at this time risks disrupting these ongoing federal assessments,” the Democratic governor said.
Opponents, including automotive groups and the state Chamber of Commerce, said such regulations should be decided by the federal government, which earlier this year established new requirements for automatic emergency braking to curb traffic deaths. Republican lawmakers also said the proposal could make cars more expensive and distract drivers.
The legislation would have likely impacted all new car sales in the U.S., since the California market is so large that car manufacturers would likely just make all of their vehicles comply.
California often throws that weight around to influence national and even international policy. The state has set its own emission standards for cars for decades, rules that more than a dozen other states have also adopted. And when California announced it would eventually ban the sale of new gas-powered cars, major automakers soon followed with their own announcement to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles.
Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, who sponsored the bill, called the veto disappointing and a setback for street safety.
“California should have led on this crisis as Wisconsin did in passing the first seatbelt mandate in 1961,” Wiener said in a statement. “Instead, this veto resigns Californians to a completely unnecessary risk of fatality.”
The speeding alert technology, known as intelligent speed assistance, uses GPS to compare a vehicle’s pace with a dataset of posted limits. If the car is at least 10 mph over, the system emits a single, brief, visual and audio alert.
The proposal would have required the state to maintain a list of posted speed limits, and it’s likely that those would not include local roads or recent changes in speed limits, resulting in conflicts.
The technology has been used in the U.S. and Europe for years. Starting in July, the European Union will require all new cars to have the technology, although drivers would be able to turn it off. At least 18 manufacturers including Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Nissan, have already offered some form of speed limiters on some models sold in America, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 10% of all car crashes reported to police in 2021 were related to speeding. This was especially a problem in California, where 35% of traffic fatalities were speeding-related — the second highest in the country, according to a legislative analysis of the proposal.
Last year the NTSB recommended federal regulators require all new cars to alert drivers when they speed. Their recommendation came after a crash in January 2022, when a man with a history of speeding violations ran a red light at more than 100 mph and struck a minivan, killing himself and eight other people.
