Washington — Vice President Kamala Harris insisted Thursday that her “values have not changed” as she explained several shifts in her policy positions and pledged to name a Republican to her Cabinet in her first interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.
Harris and Walz met with CNN’s Dana Bash in Georgia on Thursday for their first joint interview as they traveled to key swing states to try to win over swing voters and boost Democratic turnout. The duo was on a two-day bus tour of Georgia, a state they hope to keep in the Democratic column in November.
Since becoming the top candidate on the Democratic ticket after President Biden withdrew in July, Harris has come under increasing pressure to answer unfiltered questions from the media. The full interview will air at 9 p.m. ET on CNN, and the network aired the first excerpt of the interview in the afternoon.
Bash asked Harris what are his current political positions compared to what they were? During her 2020 presidential campaign, she notably addressed issues like immigration and energy, and asked voters to feel confident in her positions going forward. Harris has previously been a vocal supporter of banning fracking and has endorsed a package of energy policies known as the Green New Deal, but she has been more muted on the issue of late. She has also dropped her support for a single-payer health care system and emphasized the importance of border security, pledging to sign a bipartisan border bill into law during her speech at the Democratic National Convention.
Harris told CNN’s Bash that her “values have not changed.”
“I think the most important and significant aspect of my political perspective and my decisions is that my values have not changed,” Harris responded. “You mentioned the Green New Deal. I have always believed, and I have worked on this issue, that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent problem that we need to address with measures like meeting deadlines. We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act. We set targets for the United States of America, and by extension, for the world, to meet certain standards for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, for example. That value has not changed.”
Harris continued: “My values about what we need to secure our border, those values have not changed. I spent two terms as California attorney general prosecuting transnational criminal organizations and violations of U.S. laws regarding the movement, the illegal movement, of weapons, drugs and people across the border. My values have not changed.”
She also said she would appoint a Republican member to her cabinet, according to CNN, which has not yet released a clip of that exchange.
“I have 68 days until the election, so I’m not putting the cart before the horse,” Harris said. “But I think I would. I think it’s really important. I’ve spent my career encouraging diversity of thought. I think it’s important to have people at the table who have different perspectives and experiences when some of the most important decisions are being made. And I think it would be in the best interest of the American public to have a member of my cabinet who is a Republican.”
For weeks after she became the presumptive presidential nominee, Harris faced questions about when she would sit down for a news conference or hold a press conference. The media has long demanded interviews, but she stuck to the campaign trail, rarely taking questions from reporters.
