On June 15-16, 2024, various Facebook groups and accounts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) actively disseminated a 12-second video of the speech of the US Vice President, Kamala Harris, in which she says: “When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduce the population, more of our children can breathe clean air and drink clean water.” The users say that the US wants to reduce the world population and is no longer hiding it.
The same video was circulating on Facebook and Threads in 2023 as well.
The video of Kamala Harris is being disseminated without full context. In the video, she was talking about investing in clean energy programs, and by mistake, instead of reducing pollution, she said “reduce population.” In the official transcript published by the White House, the error has been corrected.
Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland on July 14, 2023, at the final event of the Biden administration’s Investing in America tour. During her speech, Harris announced a $20 billion investment in clean energy initiatives. Harris said, “When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduce the population, more of our children can breathe clean air and drink clean water.”
Kamala Harris mistakenly said to reduce population instead of reducing pollution.
In the official transcript released by the White House, the word population is crossed out and replaced with the word pollution. However, only the part where Harris mistakenly refers to population reduction was shared on the social network, giving the impression that the US vice president wants to reduce population to fight climate change.
The American fact-checking organization factcheck.org verified the circulated video as well.
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