Fact check: What's behind Kamala Harris citizenship claims?

It will be a first in more ways than one if Kamala Harris becomes the next president of the United States: It would mark the first time a woman holds the post, and also the first time for a person of Jamaican and Indian heritage.

The vice president is not yet the official candidate of the Democratic Party, but since President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race on Sunday, she has been the favorite — and she's become the target of a flurry of false allegations, many of them old, many of them racist and many sexist.

Unfortunately, Harris is not alone in this — women in the public eye are more likely to be discredited by fake news and disinformation than men. This is known as "gendered disinformation." According to a 2016 study conducted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, almost 42% of women parliamentarians surveyed in some 40 countries reported having seen"extremely humiliating or sexually charged images" of themselves spread through social media.

DW took a closer look at three key claims about Harris.

Yes, Harris is a US citizen and can become president

Claim: According to some, the 59-year-old cannot become president of the US because of her origins. An X post that has garnered over 1 million views reads: "Reminder that Kamala Harris is not constitutionally eligible to be either President or Vice President and is currently illegally serving as VP."

DW fact check: False

Harris' US citizenship and eligibility were first called into question when she campaigned as Biden's running mate four years ago. Now the false allegations are popping up once again.

Conspiracy theorists leveled similar accusations at Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States. There is a racist undertone in questioning whether a candidate is a natural-born US citizen or asking where they "really come from." Such doubts are seldom raised in the modern political era about white politicians.

In principle, anyone born in the United States receives US citizenship. This is granted by Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

According to official information, Harris' mother, Shyamala Gopalan, moved to the US from India at the age of 19 to enroll in a graduate program at the University of Berkeley in California, where she earned her Ph.D. Harris' Jamaican father, Donald J. Harris, also earned his doctorate from Berkeley. Kamala Harris was born on October 20, 1964, in the US state of California.

Harris' birth certificate can be found online. It was also included in an online article by the Californian daily newspaper The Mercury News in 2020, when the debate about Harris' origins kicked off in earnest. The author of the article responded to a DW inquiry and said anybody in California could obtain copies of birth certificates for purposes of information, which is what he had done.

Harris is thus a natural-born US citizen by birth and she fulfills the requirements needed to be elected (vice) president. "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States," states Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution.

No, Harris did not talk nonsense while drunk

Claim: "Today is today. And yesterday was today yesterday. Tomorrow will be today tomorrow. So live today, so the future today will be as the past today as it is tomorrow": Harris appears to be saying these words in a video circulating on Telegram, X and other social media platforms.

DW fact check: Fake.

Several aspects of the widely shared video are perplexing. Harris' mouth movements and gestures often do not match what she is saying. The US vice president also appears to be slurring her words at times. The quality of the video is poor, which is typical when footage has been manipulated.

A reverse image search shows that the video and its audio track have been circulating since May 2023, and also that it has been manipulated, possibly with the help of artificial intelligence. In the original footage, Harris is speaking about reproductive rights at an event at Howard University in 2023. In a video of Harris' speech that can be found on Facebook, she starts speaking at minute 57. The fake video begins at timecode 01:01:08.

The signs that people behind her are holding up read "Reproductive freedom," as in some fake versions of Harris' lectern, also providing clues as to the subject of Harris' speech. A reverse image search with these elements in the image leads to media reports on the event at her former university.

This fake makes the vice president appear disorientated and could be insinuating that she is drunk or has a drinking problem. It's not the first fake video attempting to associate Harris with excessive or inappropriate alcohol consumption. Although such accusations are also made about men, sociologist Sarah Sobieraj notes that shaming like this, and online shaming in particular, often targets women.

Harris' comments on Ukraine taken out of context

Claim: Many accounts have recently shared a screenshot together with an audio recording in which Harris describes Russia's war in Ukraine in a very simple way: "Ukraine is a country in Europe. It's next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia has decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So basically, that is wrong."

Many, including this X account, have made fun of Harris' apparently limited understanding of Russia's war in Ukraine on the basis of this simplistic description.

DW fact check: Misleading

This claim about the US vice president is also not new. A reverse image search brings up posts from 2022, and it is in March of that year, not long after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, that Harris actually said these words on the radio program "The Morning Hustle." The excerpt can be found here on YouTube. Harris' quote begins at 03:12.

Listening to the whole interview, it becomes clear why Harris used such simple wording. The presenter asks her specifically to break down the situation "in layman's terms for people who don't understand what's going on." Thus, in the posts circulating now, Harris' words have been taken out of context and give the wrong impression, particularly if one considers her more detailed comments afterward.

Attacking or denying a person's expertise in this way can be seen as gendered disinformation. It's one of the three basic strategies often used against women in the public sphere, said Sobieraj. The others are intimidating and shaming. Such attacks call a woman's credibility into question and suggest she is not to be taken seriously and that, therefore, she must not be suited to public office.

This article was originally written in German. 

This article was updated on July 26, 2024, with additional information regarding gendered disinformation.