SAVANNAH, Ga. — Vice President Kamala Harris, who has completely altered her policy positions on some of the nation’s most important issues since she became the Democratic nominee for president, insisted in a rare media interview Thursday there has been no major shift.
“I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,” Ms. Harris told CNN in her first sit-down interview as a 2024 presidential candidate.
Ms. Harris, accused of flip-flopping on a half-dozen major issues as she vies for moderate, battleground-state voters, gave her most detailed explanation on how she has altered her views on illegal immigration.
Just a few years ago, Ms. Harris said illegal crossings on the southern border should be decriminalized, but now she would prosecute them.
“I’m the only person in this race who actually served a border state as attorney general to enforce our laws, and I would enforce our laws as president going forward,” she said. “I recognize the problem.”
Ms. Harris, 59, navigated the questions, taped at a restaurant in downtown Savannah, without any major gaffes and with vice presidential nominee, Gov. Tim Walz, 60, by her side.
SEE ALSO: Harris defends Biden’s economic record in first interview
She vied to make news by announcing she would pick one Republican to serve on her Cabinet if she wins in November, though she wasn’t specific.
“I think it’s important to have people at the table when some of the most important decisions are being made that have different views, different experiences,” Ms. Harris said. “I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican.”
Interviewer Dana Bash failed to elicit a detailed explanation from Ms. Harris as to why she suddenly supports legislation that would resume construction of the southern border wall, why she no longer supports ending private health insurance after pledging to implement “Medicare for all,” or why she no longer seeks to ban fracking on federal land, after pledging to end it when she ran for president in 2019.
Ms. Harris addressed the flip-flopping in vague terms, explaining that after four years of being vice president and traveling the country, it has changed how she’d approach key issues.
“I believe it is important to build consensus, and it is important to find a common place of understanding of where we can actually solve problems,” Ms. Harris said.
Ms. Harris launched into an attack on her opponent, former President Donald Trump, 78, who she’s tied with in most polls, almost as soon as the interview began.
SEE ALSO: Harris says she did not support banning fracking in 2019
She talked about her candidacy as if Mr. Trump and not President Biden, was in office for the past 3 1/2 years.
“In last decade, we have had in the former president someone who has really been pushing an agenda and an environment that is about diminishing the character and the strength of who we are as Americans,” Ms Harris said. “It is really dividing our nation, and I think people are ready to turn the page on that.”
She also touted Biden policies that helped the nation recover from COVID-19 and high inflation but said she would do more to help the middle class by creating an “opportunity economy,” including a $25,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers.
When asked why she hasn’t implemented these steps during her time in office, she said, “We had to recover as an economy.”
She then pivoted to the law signed by Mr. Biden that caps insulin costs and other prescription drugs for Medicare recipients, the administration’s extension of the child tax credit and funding policies to that created manufacturing jobs and improved the nation’s supply chain.
She called the Biden agenda, “good work.”
Ms. Harris, asked about her pledge to end fracking on federal land, something she emphatically supported when running for the Democratic presidential nod in 2019, said she abandoned that position in 2020 and would not ban it if elected president.
But said she still supports addressing the so-called climate crisis.
“I believe it is very important that we take seriously, what we must do to guard against what is a clear crisis in terms of the climate,” Ms. Harris said, delving into green energy spending in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act signed by Mr. Biden.
“What I have seen is that we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking,” she said.
As for the border, Ms. Harris, who once favored decriminalizing illegal crossings, said she would sign a border security measure that provides funding for resuming construction of the border wall, although the measure she backs is generally considered by most Republicans to be too weak to curb illegal immigration.
Mr. Walz, a former teacher who served 24 years in the Army National Guard, dodged directly addressing questions over claims he served in a war zone when he actually retired from the Army before his unit deployed to Afghanistan.
He didn’t explain specifically why he said he and his wife used IVF treatments when they used a different fertility treatment that does not involve creating an embryo in a lab.
He also avoided directly addressing a question about his 2006 campaign staff’s attempt to cover up the details of his 1995 DUI arrest.
“I think people know who I am. They know that record,” said Mr. Walz, who was first elected governor in 2018. “They’ve seen that I’ve taught thousands of students. I’ve been out there, and I won’t apologize for speaking passionately, whether it’s guns in schools or protecting reproductive rights. The contrast could not be clear between what we’re running against.”
Speaking at a rally in Michigan, Mr. Trump criticized the interview and said Ms. Harris, “didn’t look like a leader to me.”
His campaign seized on Ms. Harris’ claim that her values haven’t changed, ticking off a laundry list of 24 liberal ideas that Ms. Harris has supported.
Those policies include abolishing ICE, allowing minors to change their gender without parental consent, ending cash bail, offering mass amnesty for unvetted illegal immigrants, abolishing private health care, banning plastic straws and banning gas-powered vehicles.
“It’s who Kamala Harris is —- weak, failed and dangerously liberal,” the campaign said in a statement.
⦁ Jeff Mordock reported from Washington.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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