Kamala Harris goes all in on fracking in testy interview exchange
Kamala Harris dodges gaffes but avoids policy specifics in first sit-down
interview of campaign
Vice president participates in first interview of candidacy
Harris says she'd appoint a Republican to her cabinet
By Adam Cancryn
08/29/2024 05:15 PM EDT
Updated: 08/29/2024 11:18 PM EDT
Vice President Kamala Harris vowed to make economic affordability the
first priority of her presidency, defended her shifting positions on several
key policies, and pledged continued support to Israel during a CNN
interview on Thursday that marked the first extended sit-down of her
candidacy.
Harris, during the interview, offered a vigorous defense of her record as
part of the Biden administration and hinted at expansive ambitions if
elected in November. The interview took on increasing importance in
recent days as Harris had not engaged in a lengthy back-and-forth with
reporters since President Joe Biden left the ticket and endorsed her over
a month ago.
Harris didn’t create new problems for herself with a gaffe but she largely
resisted offering much in the way of policy specifics, seeking instead to
contrast her “new way forward” with attacks on GOP nominee Donald
Trump over his temperament and most divisive policies.
“There’s some suggestion, warped I believe it to be, that the measure of
the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down,” Harris said,
“instead of where I believe most Americans are, which is that the true
measure of the strength of a leader is in who you lift up.”
Harris also pushed back on scrutiny over her changing policy positions on
issues like energy and immigration, insisting in perhaps the interview’s
sharpest moment that she had long ago changed her mind on the
politically sensitive topic of a fracking ban.
Despite supporting a ban in 2019, Harris said Thursday that she had
reversed herself the next year and would never again support an end to
the practice.
“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. “I’m very clear about where I stand.”
The interview came amid a campaign bus tour through southeast Georgia,
where Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have spent their first days on
the trail since the Democratic convention. While recent polling shows
Harris running even or slightly ahead of Trump in several battleground
states, she has faced growing pressure in recent weeks to conduct a
major interview. Harris has so far largely embraced Biden’s agenda and
vowed to build on it, while declining to specify areas where she would
break from the president.
Still, pressed on Thursday to provide more details, Harris largely declined.
She described her first priority if elected as doing “what we can to
support and strengthen the middle class,” including lowering Americans’
everyday costs and investing in families and small businesses. But Harris
did not offer any specific plans for accomplishing those goals beyond
referring to an economic blueprint she rolled out earlier this month, which
included reviving and enlarging elements of the Biden administration’s
agenda that remain unfinished.
Harris also defended the current administration’s economic record,
touting legislation capping the cost of insulin for seniors and spurring
more investment in American manufacturing. But asked whether she’d call
“Bidenomics” a success, Harris dodged.
“I’ll say that that’s good work,” she said. “There’s more to do, but that’s
good work.”
On foreign policy, Harris also toed the current White House’s line,
expressing “unequivocal and unwavering” support for Israel and its
defense and rejecting calls from progressives and Arab Americans to put
conditions on aid to the U.S. ally. Harris did acknowledge that “far too
many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” but pointed to a cease-fire
deal as the key to ending the war.
Harris throughout the interview repeatedly sought to contrast her vision
with Trump’s record, as part of her campaign’s broader effort to portray
her as the more exciting “change” candidate — and Trump, in effect, as
the incumbent. She blasted the former president for mismanaging the
Covid response during his first term, blamed him for singlehandedly
killing bipartisan border legislation and likened his candidacy to an
attempt to perpetuate an era of division.
“We have had in the former president someone who has really been
pushing an agenda and an environment that is about diminishing the
character and the strength of who we are as Americans,” Harris said. “I
think people are ready to turn the page on that.”
Still, the strategy may be flawed. At one point, she said the American
people deserve to “turn the page on the last decade,” only to be reminded
that three-and-a-half years of that decade were the Biden-Harris
administration.
Harris was less eager to discuss her own prior run for the presidency,
during which she took a series of progressive stances that she has now
disavowed. Asked what prompted her to change her mind on fracking in
2020, Harris would say only that she came to believe that “we can grow
and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning
fracking.”
She also offered little explanation of her shifts on immigration, an area
where she once expressed support for decriminalizing the southern
border.
“I believe there should be consequences,” Harris said. “We have laws that
have to be followed and enforced.”
Yet despite those changes, Harris maintained that her “values have not
changed,” urging voters to focus on the broader ideals that she’s
prioritized in her campaign rather than how her specific policies compare
with the proposals she’d embraced five years ago.
Harris adopted her more moderate stances when she joined the Biden
ticket four years ago. But she hasn’t strayed much from the
administration’s positioning since launching her own run, as her campaign
tries to broaden its appeal beyond the Democratic base.
Over the last two days in Georgia, Harris and Walz met with voters and
visited small businesses in a part of the state that Democratic presidential
contenders often neglect because they’ve relied solely on support in
metro Atlanta’s bluest counties.
It’s part of the campaign’s efforts to boost Democratic turnout in the
Peach State, appeal to swing voters and try to compete in rural areas
dominated by Trump. The strategy speaks to the lessons gleaned from
Biden’s ultra-slim victory in Georgia last cycle, when he flipped the
battleground by just 12,000 votes due to high turnout in metro Atlanta but
also a rise in support in counties outside of the perimeter. While Harris
and Walz this week steered clear of deep-red counties, they spent time in
Liberty County and Savannah’s Chatham County, two areas where
Democrats have been picking up bigger margins in recent cycles.
Harris wrapped the tour with a rally Thursday afternoon in Savannah’s
Enmarket Arena — the first time a general election presidential candidate
has campaigned in the city since the 1990s.
In a brief outreach of bipartisanship, Harris said she would appoint a
Republican to her Cabinet, saying it’s “important to have people at the
table when some of the most important decisions are being made that
have different views, different experiences.”
The vice president also offered a curt dismissal of Trump’s assertion that
she “happened to turn Black” after ignoring that part of her heritage,
calling it part of the “same old, tired playbook. Next question, please.”
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she's not "all in" on fracking. Just her priority is
Climate change and switching tactics, letting the
fracking issue go on the back burner as other climate
related policies are bigger helps.
I personally do not care for fracking, for me, it's
geological and public health.
Increase of seismic activity where fracking is being
done, for instance. They do regulate rates now after
Oklahoma had some pretty good moderate shakers a few
years back when they increased fracking.
Also, you push pressure underground, and it can push
other things into the water tables that shouldn't be
there.
This is an area where we do need to push a little more,
imo.
Big Oil will be pushing back the whole way.
Pennsylvania is a swing state that she needs to pick
up. What I hear is "I have to pick my fights right
now", not that she's "all in"..which is an
exaggeration.
What I heard is "not right now".
The article unfairly frames it as a "happily all in"
which is a mischaracterization.
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