Trump under attack over ‘racist’ claim about rival’s background
CLAIMS by US President Donald Trump that he has heard “very serious” rumours about Kamala Harris’s eligibility to serve as vice-president have been dismissed as “racist”.
Mr Trump told reporters he had heard suggestions that Ms Harris, who is Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s running mate, was born to immigrant parents and could not serve in the White House.
But Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School, said: “Let’s just be honest about what it is: it’s just a racist trope we trot out when we have a candidate of colour whose parents were not citizens.”
Ms Harris’s mother was born in India, her father was born in Jamaica and she was born in Oakland, California, so she is eligible to be president and vice-president under the constitutional requirements.
“I have no idea if that’s right,” said Mr Trump, who said he had read a column on the subject.
“I would have thought, I would have assumed, that the Democrats would have checked that out before she gets chosen to run for vice-president.”
Mr Trump appeared to be referencing an piece which was written by John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who argued that the US constitution does not grant citizenship to all people born in the US.
The president’s re-election campaign’s senior lawyer, Jenna Ellis, shared the controversial column, hours before Mr Trump was asked about it at a White House news conference.
Mr Trump noted that the column was written by a “very highly qualified and very talented lawyer”.
Mr Trump built his political career on questioning a political opponent’s legitimacy.
He was a high-profile force behind the so-called “birther movement”, the lie that questioned whether Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, was eligible to serve.
Only after mounting pressure during his 2016 campaign did Mr Trump disavow the claims.