Kamala Harris defended her shifting positions on key policies in her first major interview of her presidential campaign, insisting her “values have not changed.”
The Democratic presidential candidate has been accused of changing her position on several policies as she looks to soften her image to conservative and floating voters.
Here is how her position has changed:
Immigration
Ms Harris on Thursday night abandoned her previous support for decriminalising illegal border crossings to instead vow a tougher approach to border control.
She said she would renew a push for comprehensive border legislation that would tighten migration into the US and vowed to “enforce our laws” against border crossings.
“We have laws that have to be followed and enforced, that address and deal with people who cross our border illegally, and there should be consequences,” she said, pointing to her successes as California attorney general in prosecuting gangs accused of border trafficking.
However, the vice president has previously pushed for a more humanitarian approach in dealing with the US migration crisis.
In her 2020 campaign for president, she lobbied for the closure of immigration detention centres and the decriminalisation of illegal crossings.
In 2021, she said: “This issue cannot be reduced to a political issue. We’re talking about children, we’re talking about families, we are talking about suffering.”
Fracking
Ms Harris has reversed her stance on fracking, confirming on Thursday night that if elected as president, she would not back a ban on the energy extraction process that is key to the economy of swing-state Pennsylvania.
“No, and I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020 that I would not ban fracking. As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking,” she said.
In 2019, at a climate crisis town hall, Ms Harris was asked if she would implement a federal ban on fracking on her first day in office.
Ms Harris said at the time: “There’s no question I’m in favour of banning fracking and starting with what we can do on Day 1 around public lands.”
There was also some confusion around her stance towards the Green New Deal, a series of aggressive policies to combat climate change introduced in 2019.
She mentioned the deal during the interview, saying she had “always believed” in it and “worked on it”. However, her campaign later clarified that Ms Harris does not continue to support it.
Middle East
Ms Harris stood firm on the Biden administration’s commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself.
Rejecting calls from progressives in the party to rethink sending weapons to Israel due to the heavy Palestinian death toll, Ms Harris said she would not withhold weapons to the US ally.
She told CNN that “we must get a deal done” to secure a ceasefire while avoiding criticising Israel. It reflected a delicate balancing act on one of the country’s most divisive political issues.
Ms Harris had previously struck a tougher tone regarding the ongoing conflict, saying she “will not be silent” in the face of Palestinian suffering after a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, last month.
In previous speeches, she had shifted slightly from Mr Biden’s rhetoric. Last December, she told Israel that it “must do more to protect civilian life” and warned that “international humanitarian law must be respected”.
In February, she more outwardly criticised Israel, saying “too many innocent Palestinians have been killed”.
Economy
Ms Harris reiterated her focus on strengthening the economy, saying bolstering the middle class is one of her “highest priorities”.
Ms Harris defended her and Mr Biden’s handling of inflation, saying they inherited a pandemic-ravaged economy that she said Trump had mismanaged.
But despite all the work that had been done, she admitted that “prices are still too high”.
It didn’t mark a major departure from the Biden administration’s policies but instead, she suggested a move towards focusing on the messaging of affordability rather than job creation in manufacturing as her predecessor did.
Healthcare
Ms Harris did not mention her healthcare policies once in the CNN interview, but this month her campaign quietly confirmed that after championing Medicare for All – a universal single-payer national health insurance system, it is no longer part of her agenda.
In 2017, Ms Harris said she would eliminate private insurers as part of implementing Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All bill, which would have replaced private health care in the US with an NHS-styled system.
But since 2020, she has promoted accomplishments shared with Mr Biden about expanding access to private insurer plans that serve Obamacare patients and using Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
The post Kamala Harris says her values have not changed – but her words suggest otherwise appeared first on The Telegraph.
