Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said Vice President Kamala Harris should not be underestimated when she goes head-to-head with former President Donald Trump on the debate stage later this month.
“I think Kamala Harris has a lot of experience,” Ms. Gabbard of Hawaii said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “She is not to be underestimated.”
Ms. Gabbard was elected to the U.S. House as a Democrat and ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, but has since left the party. She endorsed Mr. Trump for president last week while attending an event with the former president and is serving on Mr. Trump’s transition team.
“President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have very different records. This is a unique situation where we have two candidates who have served at the highest offices in the land, President Trump four years as president, Kamala Harris now almost four years as vice president, working alongside President Biden,” Ms. Gabbard said.
She said the debate will be an “opportunity for voters to look at and compare and contrast those records.”
In a famous exchange during the 2020 Democratic primary, Ms. Gabbard laid into Ms. Harris’ record as a prosecutor, accusing her of jailing over 1,500 people for marijuana violations, trying to block evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row and keeping people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as state labor.
“If I can be helpful to President Trump in any way, it really is just sharing experience that I had with her on that debate stage in 2020 and, frankly, helping to point out some ways that Kamala Harris has already shown that she is trying to move away from her record, move away from her positions, and how that contradicts the positions and statements that she is making now that she is the Democratic nominee,” she said.
Ms. Harris, when asked about in her exclusive interview with CNN on Thursday about her changing positions on certain issues, said her “values have not changed.”
Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump are set to take the debate stage on Sept. 10 in Philadelphia in an event hosted by ABC News.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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