FACT CHECK: ‘You Will Do Whatever The Chinese Tell You’ – Did Kamala Harris Say This Quote To Joe Biden At A Debate?
An image shared on Facebook over 183,000 times claims that during a debate, Vice President Kamala Harris said to President Joe Biden, “You will do whatever the Chinese tell you! They gave your son over a billion dollars.”
Facebook/Screenshot
Verdict: False
There is no record of Harris making the statement during a Democratic presidential primary debate or elsewhere.
Fact Check:
The meme contains a spliced-together image of Harris and Biden standing behind podiums during the Democratic presidential primary debate that took place in June 2019. Text above the picture reads, “Anyone Remember Kamala telling Joe during the Debate: ‘You will do whatever the Chinese tell you! They gave your son over a billion dollars.'”
The purported quote appears to reference a claim former President Donald Trump made about Biden’s son, Hunter, getting $1.5 billion from a business dealing in China. Both The Washington Post and the Associated Press found that claim to be unsubstantiated. The younger Biden confirmed the Department of Justice was conducting a probe of his finances, including his Chinese business dealings, according to CNN.
A review of two sets of transcripts for the June debate turned up no instance of Harris making the statement attributed to her in the meme. There is also no record of her saying the quote about Biden doing “whatever the Chinese tell” him or mentioning Hunter in the transcripts of the other four primary debates in which she participated. Harris dropped out of the 2020 presidential race in early December 2019, according to NPR.
Harris does not appear to have made the comment elsewhere, either. Check Your Fact didn’t find any major news outlets quoting the vice president as saying the remark. (RELATED: Does Kamala Harris Want To ‘Eliminate’ Beef?)
While there is no evidence Harris accused Biden of doing “whatever the Chinese tell you” during the debate, she did not take it easy on her future running mate. During the first debate, Harris went after Biden’s record on busing and called comments Biden made about working with segregationist senators “hurtful,” CNBC reported. Harris also clashed with Biden on issues such as health care and the Hyde Amendment during the debates, according to Fox News.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
