The U.S. Constitution states in order to be president, you must be 35 years of age, a natural born citizen, and must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. To become vice president, you have to be eligible to become president.
Sen. Kamala Harris, 55, was born in Oakland, California, in 1964 and a US citizen at birth.
Akin to the controversy he tried to stir during the Barack Obama's Presidency, President Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that Harris isn’t eligible to run for vice president.
Harris on Tuesday was announced as Joe Biden’s running mate on this year’s Democratic presidential ticket.
"I heard it today that she doesn't meet the requirements. And, by the way, the lawyer that wrote that piece is a very qualified, very talented lawyer,” Trump said.
On Thursday, Newsweek published an op-ed questioning her eligibility. Newsweek defended the op-ed's publication.
The argument that the op-ed makes, penned by John C. Eastman, is that Harris isn't a natural born citizen because her parents were not US citizens at the time of her birth. The issue Eastman raises is that the US constitution does not define "natural born citizen."
But the 14th amendment clearly states that those born on US soil are citizens at birth.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside," the amendment reads.
Similar controversies have transpired when Sens. John McCain and Ted Cruz ran for president. Both were US citizens at birth, but were not born on US soil.
Harris was born to two immigrant parents, a Jamaican father and Indian mother. According to his official college biography, Harris’ father Donald J. Harris was born a Jamaican citizen but has naturalized as an American citizen. Donald J. Harris is a professor emeritus at Stanford.
According to her official obituary, the senator’s mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who died in 2009, came to the United States as a teenager and began participating in the Civil Rights Movement. She then became a cancer researcher at UC Berkeley.
