Harris explains in exclusive CNN interview why she’s shifted her position on key issues since her first run for presiden

So much for MoronChat claims that it was scripted and no hardball questions!

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/29/politics/kamala-harris-tim-walz-cnntv/index.html


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.

And she brushed off her rival’s questioning of her racial identity, dismissing Donald Trump’s suggestion she “happened to turn Black.”

“Same old, tired playbook,” she said. “Next question, please.”

Pressed by Bash on her reversals on fracking and decriminalizing illegal border crossings, Harris sought to explain why her positions had changed.

Her campaign later said Harris does not continue to support the Green New Deal, a wide-ranging proposal to address climate change first introduced in 2019.

During a September 2019 climate crisis town hall hosted by CNN, Harris was asked if she would commit to implementing a federal ban on fracking on her first day in office.

“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 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.

And she pointed to her record as California attorney general, when she prosecuted gangs accused of cross border trafficking, as an indication of her values on immigration.

Embracing her vow to act as a president for “all Americans,” Harris said in the interview she would appoint a Republican to her cabinet if elected, though said she did not have a particular name in mind. It revives a tradition over the past several decades – not embraced by Trump or Biden – of presidents naming at least one member of the opposing party to their cabinet.

“I’ve got 68 days to go with this election, so I’m not putting the cart before the horse,” she said. “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.”