Daily Wire host spreads racist birther conspiracy theory against Kamala Harris
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Citation
From the August 17, 2020, edition of The Daily Wire's The Michael Knowles Show
MICHAEL KNOWLES (HOST): Ok, first of all, it's not a bogus claim. Second of all, nothing about the argument is racist. Third of all, it's not even close to the argument that people were making about Obama, the birther argument. This is completely different. What is the argument?
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The question is, if Kamala Harris' parents were not American citizens when she was born, even though she was born in the United States, is she a citizen? The essay that John Eastman wrote isn't even really about Kamala Harris. It's about birthright citizenship. Which now we all take for granted as part of the Constitution but which, frankly, we probably shouldn't take for granted because there is still a very open question about whether or not the Constitution, the 14th Amendment, give us birthright citizenship.
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So does that mean that all persons born in the United States are citizens? No, of course not. There's another clause here. "And subject to the jurisdiction thereof." So, for instance, the children of diplomats are not automatically American citizens. If the ambassador from Russia and his wife have a kid, you know, on U.S. soil, that kid does not become a U.S. citizen. Ok, what about Native Americans? They're born, I guess it's U.S. soil but it's reservation so how does that work? What about illegal aliens who have, so called, anchor babies? Are their kids citizens? Are they subject to the jurisdiction thereof? Manifestly not. If you're a foreign national and you're here in the United States, you're not subject to the jurisdic -- in a very limited sense you're subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, but you're not subject -- you know, if you get a parking ticket, or something, I suppose you have to pay it -- but you're not subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States because you are a citizen of another country.
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Suffice it to say, the Supreme Court has never held that anyone born on U.S. soil is automatically a citizen. Democrats don't want to have that debate. And it's not just about Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris is going to be able to run for vice president, no one's going to stop her. However -- and by the way, when people raise these questions - remember they raised the question about John McCain because he was born in Panama, was he eligible? Nobody ever said that was racist or sexist or anything. So, it's not really about them. What this is really about, though, is illegal aliens who come over here and on whose future citizenship and the citizenship of their children Democrats are staking their electoral viability. That's really what's at the heart of this freak out. And they don't want you to be able to have the question about birthright citizenship and we should absolutely force it.