Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and vice presidential nominee Tim Walz walk down the steps from Air Force Two at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport in Savannah, Georgia, U.S., August 28, 2024.
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday defended the apparent policy shifts to the center she has made since her 2019 run for president, saying her values on key issues, including border security and climate change, have stayed the same.
Harris, in her first sit-down interview since replacing President Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket more than a month earlier, reportedly also vowed to pick a Republican to serve in her Cabinet if she is elected in November.
“I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is, my values have not changed,” Harris told CNN anchor Dana Bash.
Her remarks came in the first clip to air of the joint interview with Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Harris and Walz have come under fire from their Republican rivals, former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, over their lack of exposure to the press.
The interview took place at Kim’s Cafe in Savannah, Georgia, earlier Thursday. It is set to air at 9 p.m. ET on CNN.
Bash in the clip had asked Harris, “How should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made, that you’ve explained some of here, in your policy?”
The vice president picked two hot-button issues to illustrate her point.
“You mentioned the Green New Deal,” Harris said. “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.”
“We did that with the inflation Reduction Act. 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,” she said.
“As an example, that value has not changed.”
Harris went on, “My value around what we need to do to secure our border — that value has not changed.”
“I spent two terms as the attorney general of California, prosecuting transnational criminal organizations, violations of American laws, regarding the passage — illegal passage — of guns, drugs and human beings across our border,” she said. “My values have not changed.”
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.
