Vice President Kamala Harris said that her “values have not changed” in response to criticism she has received for shifting her position on key issues since her first run for president in 2020.
Harris sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash for her first TV interview since becoming the Democratic nominee for president with her running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN.) on Thursday.
In an excerpt of the interview released by CNN, Bash asked Harris what voters should make of the changes to some of her policy positions.
“I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,” she said. “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. We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act.”
“My value around what we need to do to secure our border – that value has not changed,” Harris continued. “I spent two terms as the attorney general of California prosecuting transnational criminal organizations, violations of American laws regarding the illegal passage of guns, drugs and human beings across our border. 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 added. “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.”
It is in that spirit of building consensus that Harris promised to have a GOP official in her Cabinet though she did not name any individuals she would consider.
“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,” Harris said. “And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican.”
