Senator Bernie Sanders recently commented on Vice President Kamala Harris’ evolving policy positions over the weekend as politically calculating efforts to help her win next year’s election.
Sanders was blunt about Harris’ turnaround on some progressive policies with less than two months to go until the November election during an appearance Sunday morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
NBC anchor Kristen Welker asked Sanders, “She has previously supported Medicare-For-All, now she does not. She’s previously supported a ban on fracking, now she does not. These, senator, are ideas that you have campaigned on. Do you think she is abandoning her progressive ideals?” NBC anchor Kristen Welker asked Sanders.
“No, I don’t think she’s abandoning her ideals,” he replied. “I think she’s trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”
Harris did not support these policies in the presidential race after becoming the Democratic nominee but previously embraced far-left positions on immigration, energy and health care that have become increasingly mainstream. In her first sit-down interview as the nominee in August,
Harris was pressed on shifting policy stances and responded: “I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed.”
“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,” Harris continued.
“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,” Harris said.
“That value has not changed. 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. My values have not changed,” she said.
While Sanders conceded in the NBC interview that he and Harris disagree over a few issues,, “of course” she is progressive aligned with similar aims. As for Harris’ rebuke of Medicare-For-All, “She has a different way to get you (to) universal health care,” he said. He noted that Harris is a candidate who “supports expanding Medicare, Social Security and raising [the] minimum wage,” ideas which are in line with what he’d like to see as far as policy from the progressive wing of his party.
Sanders restated his faith in Harris’ progressivism — pointing to a number of policies that they agree on.
A Harris’ campaign spokesperson earlier also said that Harris was aligning herself in a “pragmatic” way, focusing on consensus-building and bringing all sides together.
Harris will go head-to-head with former President Donald Trump in a debate hosted by ABC News on Tuesday.
