It's true Harris said these words during a July 2023 speech about climate change and clean energy. However, a video of the entire speech and the official White House transcript both showed she meant to say "reduce pollution," not "reduce population." As further evidence of this being the case, just several sentences earlier, Harris correctly spoke the words "reduce pollution" as part of another line.
In the days after U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her 2024 vice-presidential running mate, a long-debunked rumor reared its head again online. Users on X misleadingly claimed a video clip showed Harris delivering remarks and purportedly talking about reducing the population.
For example, on Aug. 9, one user on X posted (archived) an 11-second video clip showing Harris saying, "When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduce population, more of our children can breathe clean air and drink clean water." That user asked of the clip, "What population does she want to reduce?"
However, all that user would need to do in order to find the truth of this matter was perform an online search. The same goes for other users who also either accidentally or purposely did not provide all of the facts to their followers.
Harris Meant to Say 'Reduce Pollution,' Not 'Population'
A simple Google search found FactCheck.org, Fox News and Lead Stories all published articles in July 2023 providing the facts about the flubbed Harris quote. For example, Fox News reported, "Harris meant to say 'pollution,' and her office said the vice president misspoke. The official transcript of the event reflects that Harris meant to say that electric vehicles and clean energy would reduce pollution."
The official White House transcript displayed the word "population" with a strikethrough line and added the correct word "pollution." The transcript also identified the name of the speech as, "Combatting Climate Change and Building a Clean Energy Economy." Harris delivered the remarks at Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 14, 2023.
The official White House transcript displayed the word that Harris meant to say. It's also the only word of the two that makes sense, both from subject and grammatical standpoints.
As further evidence Harris meant to say "reduce pollution" and not "reduce population," just several sentences earlier she said "reduce pollution" in another line reading, "Imagine, for example, the small-business owner who will now be able to receive zero-interest loans to electrify their fleet of delivery vehicles so we can reduce pollution and save on gas."
There's also the fact that saying "reduce pollution" makes sense, whereas "reduce population" would require the word "the" between the two words in order to be grammatically correct.
Readers can watch a longer video of Harris' remarks. The "reduce pollution" line occurs at the 8:09 mark, while the misspoken line "reduced population" happens at 9:38.
For further reading, we previously published reporting about other false claims about population reduction regarding Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and science educator Bill Nye.