US Vice-President Kamala Harris defended some personal shifts in policy toward the centre on Thursday and said she might name a Republican to her cabinet if elected, in her first interview with a mainstream news organisation since Democrats nominated her for president.
“I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is, my values have not changed,” she told CNN anchor Dana Bash in an early excerpt from the interview to be broadcast on Friday.
Harris has moved more towards the centre on some issues from the time she ran for president in 2020 until she took over from US President Joe Biden as the Democrats’ choice to face Republican former president Donald Trump in the November 5 election.
She has toughened her position on migration along the southern US border with Mexico. She also no longer wants a ban on fracking, an energy production method that employs many people in Pennsylvania, one of a handful of swing states that could decide the election.
“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 organisations, violations of American laws, regarding the illegal passage of guns, drugs and human beings across our border. My values have not changed,” she said.
Harris’ conversation was aimed at showing her in command of the issues. Some critics suggested she may be less polished in unscripted settings after she led Democrats’ turnaround with a series of forceful campaign speeches.
Harris, joined by her vice-presidential running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, also discussed the possibility of adding a Republican to her potential cabinet, saying she wanted a diversity of opinion.
“I think 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. And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my cabinet who was a Republican,” she said.
The US vice-president has eschewed formal interviews and press conferences during her rapid rise to the top of the Democratic ticket.
Though she has taken questions from journalists on the campaign trail and been interviewed on TikTok in recent days, she had, until Thursday, not done a one-on-one interview with a major network or print journalist since Biden ended his re-election campaign on July 21 and endorsed her.
Bash, who co-moderated the June 27 debate between Donald Trump and Biden that hastened the president’s departure from the race, conducted the interview in Savannah, Georgia, as Harris and Walz continued their bus tour of the battleground state.
Harris’ lack of interviews has sparked criticism from opponents, and some concern among supporters, that she is less sharp in spontaneous settings than at rallies or speeches where she can use prepared remarks and a Teleprompter.
Harris and Walz arrived at Kim’s Cafe, a black-owned restaurant, in the early afternoon to tape the CNN interview.
Before Harris picked him as her running mate, Walz did a string of interviews with major television networks.
Trump frequently holds press conferences and offers interviews to conservative news outlets. He often uses them to criticise Harris and Biden rather than discuss his own policy aims in detail.
On Thursday, Harris campaigned in Savannah, Georgia and told a crowd of 7,500 that “we have some hard work ahead of us”, to defeat her Republican rival Trump, but she was confident Georgia would vote Democratic again after a narrow win for Biden-Harris there in 2020.
During the speech, Harris reiterated support for a deal to get a ceasefire and the release of hostages in Gaza when her remarks were interrupted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
Harris said she and Biden were working “around the clock” to get that deal. “Everyone has a right and should have their voices heard,” Harris said. “I am speaking now, but on the subject I will say this – the president and I are working around the clock.”
As Harris’ bus caravan left her Savannah hotel on Thursday, several dozen Trump supporters with signs and banners braved torrential rain to line the streets.
Harris and Walz kicked off their bus tour of Georgia on Tuesday.
Trump has himself been hitting the campaign trail hard in recent days. Speaking at an event in Potterville, Michigan on Thursday, Trump targeted Harris on her immigration policy shifts: “Now she’s saying: ‘Oh we want to build a strong border’.
“Where has she been for three and a half years?”
Harris and Trump are set to face off in their pivotal first debate on September 10 in Philadelphia.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
