A gaffe made by Vice President Kamala Harris in which she accidentally described a plan to "reduce population" has been leapt upon by conservative figures as proof of a conspiracy theory.
On Friday, Harris delivered a speech at Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland, where she described Democrats' plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and to reach net-zero emissions by 2050
"When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduce population, more of our children can breathe clean air and drink clean water," Harris said.
There is no indication that Harris was actually outlining a plan to reduce the world's population during her speech in order to combat the effects of climate change or other political goals, and instead had merely misspoken.
In the official White House transcript of the speech, the word "population" is crossed out, and replaced with the word "pollution" which Harris was meant to have said. The White House has been contacted for further comment,
The error was seized on by several right-wing figures, who suggested Harris was openly calling for a reduction in the world's population.
"Are you the population she wants to reduce?" congressman Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, tweeted while sharing a clip of Harris' remarks.
Are you the population she wants to reduce? https://t.co/18E9Hql41e
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 15, 2023
Harris' approval rating has been consistently lower than President Joe Biden's throughout their term in office. Political scientists suggest Harris is likely to come under even closer scrutiny as the running mate to the oldest person ever to seek a second presidential term in 2024.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote: "'Reduce population' @VP what do you mean by reduce population? Abortion? Assisted suicide? Or what means are you suggesting to reduce population in order to help public health?"
Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt added: "VP Kamala Harris says the quiet part out loud regarding her and other climate alarmists very anti human ideology and their desire to 'reduce population'."
Far-right influencer Rogan O'Handley added under his DC_Draino Twitter account: "Kamala just said that 'reducing population' is a goal of the climate change movement. They aren't hiding it anymore. YOU are the carbon they want to eliminate True evil."
Speaking on his Fox News show on Friday, Jesse Watters said: "What she just said, you're not supposed to say if you're a liberal. They've been saying this for a long time, they need to reduce population to heal the planet."
In response, conservative commentator Tomi Lahren said: "This is another one of those Republican conspiracy theories you've said for so long, that Democrats want to reduce the population, and then she just flat out said it."
This is not the first time that Harris made a gaffe during her public speaking, or gave rambling word salads.
A clip of Harris appearing to struggle to describe what Artificial Intelligence is recently went viral on social media.
"I think the first part of this issue that should be articulated is AI is kind of a fancy thing, first of all, it's two letters, it means artificial intelligence but ultimately what it is is it's about machine learning," Harris said during a round table earlier this week.
"And so the machine is taught and part of the issue here is what information is going into the machine that will then determine, and we can predict then if we think about what information is going in, what then will be produced in terms of decisions and opinions that may be made through that process."
In May 2022, Harris made confusing remarks while delivering a speech about expanding internet access to part of rural America alongside Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards.
"The governor and I and we were all doing a tour of the library here and talking about the significance of the passage of time. Right? The significance of the passage of time," Harris said.
"So, when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time in terms of what we need to do to lay these wires, what we need to do to create these jobs."
