Did US Vice President Kamala Harris intend to say the population should be reduced so more of our children can breathe clean air? While it is true that during a speech about climate change Harris said the words "reduce population", it's understood that the vice president misspoke and meant to say "reduce pollution". Now Croatian politician Marin Miletić has labeled Harris "evil and demonic" and is misconstruing her words in an apparent effort to bolster his longstanding opposition to environmentalists combatting climate change.
The story reappeared as a video (archived here) where it was published by TikTok on July 24, 2023, under the title "The second lady of the USA says we need to reduce the population" with Miletić saying:
Kamala Harris, Vice President of the USA, and in fact America's main man, since Biden is completely executed and demented, declared: "We must invest in electric cars and reduce the population so that OUR children can drink clean water and breathe clean air!" 🤢🤮 And what about our children? What about the children of little Croatia and the whole of Europe? What about the children of the poor world Mrs. Harris? These evil and demonic people who rule this world think they can do whatever they want and however they want. But there will be a great awakening of the people of the world. There will be not a big reset, but a big new beginning!
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Jul 28 20:27:22 2023 UTC)
On July 14, 2023, Harris gave a speech in Baltimore about combatting climate change with a focus on incentives to reduce greenhouse emissions in the United States. About two-thirds of the way into the speech the Vice President said "When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduce population, more of our children can breathe clean air and drink clean water."
Following the speech the White House released a transcript correcting the error. The transcript crossed out the word population and in brackets inserted the word [pollution]. As the rest of the speech was focusing on climate change reduction methods it is most likely that Harris intended to say pollution. No other part of the speech referenced depopulation. Lead Stories has previously debunked claims surrounding the speech.
Marin Miletić is a Croatian Member of Parliament from a minority, socially conservative political party, who has previously hit out at what he calls "eco-fascists", a label he uses to describe politicians and those who campaign for environmental green policies. Many of his posts on TikTok promote conspiracy theories including those against "globalists" or "global elites" and conspiracy theories, saying these so-called global elites plan to depopulate the world. Miletić has previously accused the Croatian Prime Minister of being a "freemason", another target of conspiracy theorists. The politician is an anti-vaxxer, who has labeled Covid-19 a "plandemic" using the Croatian translation "plandemija". As a result, a number of his posts have been given Covid-19 labels by TikTok.
