Vice President Kamala Harris was pressed about her policy development Thursday in her first interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, sitting alongside running mate Tim Walz.
The highly anticipated interview with CNN’s Dana Bash came after Harris was pressed to answer other questions from nonpartisan reporters and fully outline how his views differ from those of President Joe Biden. He has largely avoided doing either in the 39 days since he decided not to run for re-election and endorsed her instead.
“I think the most important and significant aspect of my political perspective,” Harris said when asked about his policy evolution, “is that my values haven’t changed.”
However, he admitted that his experience as vice president has made him update his views on certain issues.
“I think it’s important to build consensus and it’s important to find a common place to understand where we can really solve problems,” Harris added, seemingly nodding to how political realities may have influenced his views.
Harris ran for president in 2019 on a progressive agenda that included “Medicare for All,” the Green New Deal, and a ban on hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting natural gas or oil known as “fracking.” That campaign caught fire, and when Biden chose Harris as his running mate, he naturally embraced his agenda and platform.
But with Harris now at the top of the ticket — along with a shift in politics — it’s been unclear where he diverges from his 2019 campaign and Biden’s policies, some of which are incompatible.
Harris has not sat for an interview or stood at a press conference since Biden stepped aside and endorsed him, meaning the public has seen him almost exclusively through the campaign-driven lens of protests, online videos and last week’s Democratic National Convention.
Any other modern presidential candidate in history would have done numerous one-on-one interviews in the primaries and general elections long before they sit down with their running mate for a joint interview in late summer.
But Harris had no such luxury, given the timing of his rise. He has had to recalibrate his political positions and build campaign infrastructure on the fly during the white heat of the presidential election.
Harris is also simultaneously trying to make a turn to the ideological center, as is usual for presidential candidates in the November election season.
For example, Harris told Bash that he no longer supports a fracking ban because he has seen during his time as vice president that the United States can achieve its climate change goals without denying oil and gas extraction, a key industry. on the battlefield in the state of Pennsylvania.
“We can do that without banning fracking,” Harris said. “Actually, Dana, Dana, I gave the resignation that actually increased the rent on fracking as vice president. So I’m very clear about where I stand.”
Still, Harris appeared defensive at times when pressed to acknowledge that he had changed his position or asked to point out the evidence that led him to change his views.
Asked if he supported his 2019 support for decriminalizing illegal border crossings, Harris did not directly answer, but said there should be consequences for illegal crossings, and touted his experience taking on multinational gangs as “attorney general of a border state” in California.
Harris also said he is interested in appointing a Republican to his board.
“I have spent my career attracting different opinions. I think it’s important to have people at the table when important decisions are made with different perspectives, different experiences,” Harris said. “And I think it would be in the best interest of the American public to have a Republican on my board.”
Walz sat quietly for most of the interview before being asked about his own controversies — including moments in the past when he appeared to play up parts of his 24 years of experience in the Army National Guard.
In a 2018 speech after the school shooting, Minnesota Governor Walz suggested the gun used was similar to the one he carried “in the war,” even though he had never seen combat.
Walz said his wife, Gwen, an English teacher, tells him “my grammar isn’t always right,” but he dismissed the controversy as largely Republican bullshit.
“If it’s not this, it’s an attack on my kids for showing love to me, or it’s an attack on my dog — I’m not going to do that. And one thing I never do is I never downplay I have never had, nor will I ever do, the service of another member. I think they will see my students come out, and they will vouch for me , when I do them.”
An interview that lasted only 30 minutes could only cover so much. Many difficult questions for Harris and Walz remain unanswered. And it didn’t have time to delve into softer – but often just as fascinating to voters – topics about the candidates’ personalities or mutual relationships.
There were no questions, for example, about the messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan or former President Donald Trump’s controversial visit to Arlington National Cemetery this week.
Harris has faced increasing demands from Republicans and many in the news media to answer tough questions, and a single interview is unlikely to completely silence those awaiting the Sept. 10 debate with Trump.
“If you translate [an interview] to a major event, and you raise the stakes for yourself,” Barack Obama’s former top strategist David Axelrod said on a CNN panel before the interview.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
