White House chief of staff Mark Meadows says the White House is not going to “pursue” the conspiracy theory that California Sen. Kamala Harris is ineligible to be vice president.
In a Sunday interview for CNN’s State of the Union, host Jake Tapper asked Meadows if he believed Harris to be eligible for the position after the Trump campaign floated the theory without directly endorsing it.
“Sure,” he said, adding, “And I think the president spoke to this yesterday. This is not something that we’re gonna pursue.”
Meadows asserted that the press was blowing the issue out of proportion.
“Actually, Jake, you and a number in the media, y’all spent more time on it than anybody in the White House has talking about this,” he said. “I’m more concerned with Kamala Harris’s liberal ideas coming from San Francisco to the rest of America than I am where she was born or anything else.”
Harris was born in Oakland, California, to immigrant parents and is a U.S. citizen.
At a press briefing on Thursday, President Trump told reporters, “I heard it today, that she doesn’t meet the requirements,” adding, “And by the way, the lawyer that brought that piece is very, highly qualified, very talented lawyer. I have no idea if that’s right.”
Trump was referring to a Newsweek op-ed that called Harris’s eligibility into question. Trump campaign senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis retweeted the op-ed and told ABC News on Thursday, “It’s an open question, and one I think Harris should answer so the American people know for sure she is eligible.”
Trump said at a press conference on Saturday, “It’s not something we will be pursuing. Let me put it differently, to me, it doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t know about it. I read one quick article. The lawyer happens to be a brilliant lawyer.”
Newsweek has since apologized for the controversy generated by the op-ed.
