Both the White House and the Trump campaign on Sunday said unequivocally that Sen. Kamala Harris is eligible to serve as vice president and blamed the media for fomenting unfounded questions about the issue.
“Yeah,” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “This is not something that we’re going to pursue … y’all have spent more time on it than anybody in the White House has talking about this.”
Trump campaign senior advisor Jason Miller said it’s not something anyone on the campaign is talking about.
“In our opinion, it is case closed. End of story. And the only folks who keep bringing it up are the media,” Mr. Miller said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Ms. Harris was born in Oakland, California to a Jamaican-born father and an Indian mother and is a “natural born citizen” eligible to serve as vice president.
President Trump has said in recent days that he has no idea whether a theory put forth by a conservative lawyer calling Ms. Harris’s eligibility into question is correct.
“The lawyer happens to be brilliant lawyer, as you probably know,” the president said on Saturday. “He wrote an article saying there could be a problem. It’s not something that I’m going to be pursuing.”
Newsweek has since apologized for the recent opinion piece from attorney John Eastman, saying it’s “being used by some as a tool to perpetuate racism and xenophobia.”
