Vice President Kamala Harris is finally conducting an interview with a journalist for the first time since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee in place of President Joe Biden a month ago. This should be extremely entertaining if the conversation with CNN’s Dana Bash is actually off script. We’ve all witnessed what Harris is like when she doesn’t have a teleprompter and a solid speech to read out loud. It’s word salad after word salad, a jumble of bits and pieces of words and phrases all mixed and matched, all the while she stares at us wide-eyed and nods as if to check if we understood anything she spewed forth.
A clip of the interview has been shared ahead of the full broadcast which is scheduled for 9 p.m. on Thursday evening. In the video, Harris essentially admitted that her overall “values have not changed,” despite seemingly copy-and-pasting former President Donald Trump’s policies right from his platform. She’s insisting that her radical left-wing policies are the same as always. Essentially, she’s making campaign promises to appeal to certain segments of voters in order to bamboozle them into casting ballots for her in November, but likely won’t follow through on anything.
Kamala Harris confirms that her far left policies have not changed one bit—she’s still as bad as she was in 2019. pic.twitter.com/Cce28Ydrdj
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 29, 2024
via CNN:
Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday offered her most expansive explanation to date on why she’s changed some of her positions on fracking and immigration, telling CNN’s Dana Bash her values haven’t shifted but that her time as vice president provided new perspective on some of the country’s most pressing issues. In the CNN exclusive sit-down interview, Harris also said she would name a Republican to serve in her Cabinet if elected.
And she brushed off her rival’s questioning of her racial identity, dismissing Donald Trump’s suggestion she “happened to turn Black” as the “same old, tired playbook.” Pressed by Bash on her reversals on fracking and decriminalizing illegal border crossings, Harris sought to explain why her positions had changed. In all, the joint interview in Savannah with her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz – their first since becoming the Democratic presidential ticket – provided one of the clearest looks into Harris’ positions and her plans for the presidency.
“How should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made?” Bash went on to ask Harris during their conversation. “Is it because you have more experience now and you’ve learned more about the information? Is it because you were running for president in a Democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you’re saying now is going to be your policy moving forward?”
Harris then responded by saying that despite several sizable shifts in policy position, her values are the same as they always have been.
“I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,” she remarked. “You mentioned the Green New Deal. I have always believed – and I have worked on it – that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”
Back in 2019, during a climate crisis town hall event, which was also hosted by CNN, Harris was asked if she were elected president if, on day one, she would ban fracking.
“There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking, and starting with what we can do on Day 1 around public lands,” Harris said at the time. By the time she had become Joe Biden’s running mate, she had moved away from that stance and even cast the tie breaking vote to expand fracking leases, as she noted to Bash.
On Thursday, Harris pointed to the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which provided record investments in combatting climate change, as an example of her climate record.
“We have set goals for the United States of America and by extension, the globe, around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as an example. That value has not changed,” she answered.
Harris then pivoted to her record serving as the attorney general in California, when she supposedly laid the smack down on gangs that were accused of trafficking across the southern border, citing this as an example of her values concerning immigration.
“My values have not changed. So that is the reality of it. And four years of being vice president, I’ll tell you, one of the aspects, to your point, is traveling the country extensively,” she said, pointing to her 17 visits to Georgia since becoming vice president. “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.”
Harris then made the claim that if she wins in November she would be a president for “all Americans,” and would toss the GOP a bone by appointing a Republican to her Cabinet, though she didn’t provide a specific name. Gee, thanks. You get to destroy America while a token Republican gets a front row seat to the obliteration. Wonderful.
“I’ve got 68 days to go with this election, so I’m not putting the cart before the horse,” she explained. “But I would, I think. I think it’s really important. I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion. 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. And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican.”
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