The first interview with Kamala Harris as a presidential candidate, along with running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, was conducted by CNN’s Dana Bash.
One of the most controversial questions Bash asked Harris during the interview was about her perceived policy changes.
“Generally speaking, how should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made?” CNN host Dana Bash asked Harris. “Is it because you have more experience now, and you’ve learned more about the information? Is it because you were running for president in a Democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you’re saying now is going to be your policy moving forward?”
To which Harris replied, “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.”
Online commentators assailed Harris for trying to match moderate, middle-groundspeak with what they believed was radical-left-winger political positions.
“San Francisco progressive values have not, and will not ever change,” said Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS).
Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald: “Kamala didn’t even remotely pretend she was explaining why the things she pretended to believe when running in 2020 are now things she pretends [sic]she no longer believes. And apparently there was no pretense of trying to demand a response. There was a reason they chose Dana Bash.”
Some other conservative commentators parroted those sentiments and claimed Harris was still “radical.” “Kamala Harris is STILL a radical San Francisco liberal,” said Chad Gilmartin, president of Gilmartin Strategies.
The interview even got lambasted for giving him a soft ride.
“Incredible to see Bash lob a slow pitch question and then cue up Harris with multiple choices on how to answer. It’s the weak set up we all knew it was going to be.”
Meanwhile, others took aim at Harris for supposedly being too vague in describing her own positions.
After that interview, examples of Harris flip-flopping on major topics have been making the rounds once more before she was revealed to be against a border wall before embracing it and flipping her positions on fracking or Medicare for All. This is the latest move that fueled a debate late last year about whether it was Harris’ values or just politics.
