Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign has walked back several of her left-wing policy positions within the first 10 days of her candidacy.
Harris endorsed a litany of left-wing ideas during her first run for the presidency during the 2020 cycle, including a ban on fracking, mandatory federal gun buybacks and the abolition of private health insurance. However, her campaign is now trying to clarify that she has changed her positions after Republicans flooded social media with video clips of Harris endorsing such policies — less than 10 days after she launched her campaign following President Joe Biden’s July 21 announcement that he was quitting the 2024 race.
Harris’ campaign now says that she endorses a ban on assault weapons rather than mandatory federal buybacks, no longer believes that fracking should be banned and does not still want a single-payer health care system, according to The New York Times. The campaign also pointed out that the vice president supported Biden’s requests for more funding for border enforcement.
‘Border Czar’ Kamala Harris Once Blamed ‘Lack Of Climate Adaptation’ For Massive Immigration Surge@DailyCaller News Foundationhttps://t.co/cSKH1dfVzf
— Nick Pope (@realnickpope) July 25, 2024
Harris suggested during the 2020 cycle that illegal border crossings should be decriminalized, and she likenedImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the Ku Klux Klan in 2018 during her time as a senator.
“The trouble with her own words is that they are so recent! She just held these views and now she doesn’t? Come on,” Scott Jennings, a political strategist and on-air pundit for CNN, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “She’d be better off just trying to own her authentic views. I think people are more forgiving of authenticity than they are of bullshit anonymous statements from campaign flaks trying to clean it up.”
In 2021, Biden deputized Harris to lead the administration’s diplomatic efforts with Central American countries to addressthe root causes of illegal immigration to the U.S., which she once said include a “lack of climate adaptation and climate resilience.” Over the course of Biden’s first term in office, authorities have encountered at least 6.7 million illegal immigrants at the southwest border, according to the House Committees on Homeland Security and Oversight and Accountability.
The Trump campaign is hoping to get Harris in off-script situations — whether in debates or unscripted interviews — so that she has to defend her record and previous comments on the spot, the Daily Caller reported Tuesday.
“The Trump campaign is more than competent enough to make her own words stick,” Jennings told the DCNF.
The Harris campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Featured Image Credit: Flickr/Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson
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