In CNN interview excerpts, Harris says values have 'not changed' as policy stances shift

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday in her first major sit-down interview since becoming the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee said her “values have not changed” even as some of her stances on critical policies have shifted, such as on energy and immigration.

“I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,” Harris told CNN during a joint interview with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, while on their bus tour in Georgia.

Since being elevated as the Democratic presidential nominee after President Joe Biden stepped aside from the 2024 election, Harris has been called to define her platform. In doing so, she has reversed some of her previous stances on issues like the oil and gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracking.

In 2019 when she was first running for president, Harris said she was in favor of banning fracking. She also sponsored the Green New Deal as a California senator. But in the 2024 election, Harris’ campaign has said she is no longer in favor of banning the technique, which has helped in recent years to significantly produce domestic energy production from states including Texas and Pennsylvania.

Harris during the CNN interview pointed to her support for the Green New Deal, saying that she believes the climate crisis is real.

“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,” Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash.

On the border, Harris also denied that her position has changed. The vice president throughout the 2024 campaign has promoted a failed-bipartisan immigration bill that would have expanded detention capacity and increased the number of green-card-eligible visas every year for five years, while still making it harder for people to qualify for asylum.

“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 organization, violations of American laws regarding the passage illegal passage of guns, drugs, and warnings across our border, about my values,” Harris said.

In her pitch to be a president for all Americans – one that her boss, Biden, also proclaimed — Harris said that she believes “it’s really important” to appoint a Republican to her Cabinet if elected.

“I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion,” she said. “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.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: In CNN interview, Kamala Harris says values have 'not changed'