Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz sat down for their first major interview as running mates in a pre-recorded CNN interview that aired Thursday night.
Until Thursday, Harris had avoided doing any sit-down interviews with the press since her ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket more than a month ago when President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
Harris, however, told CNN’s Dana Bash that she has no regrets about defending President Biden’s capacity to serve, even after his disastrous June 27 debate performance against former President Donald Trump.
“No, not all,” Harris responded when asked if she had “any regrets about what you told the American people.”
“Not at all,” she repeated. “He has the intelligence, the commitment, and the judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president. By contrast, the former president has none of that.”
Harris was also pressed on her many policy flip-flops, such as her claims that she no longer supports a ban on fracking or decriminalizing illegal border crossings.
“How should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made, that you’ve explained some of here, in your policy?” Bash asked. “Should they feel comfortable and confident that what you’re saying now is going to be your policy moving forward?”
“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,” Harris replied.
“We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act. We have set goals for the United States of America and by extension the globe around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as an example. That value has not changed. 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 organizations, violations of American laws regarding the passage, illegal passage of guns, drugs, and human beings across our border. My values did not change.”
At one point in the interview, Walz, who served 24 years in the National Guard, was asked about one of his several mischaracterizations regarding his military record. Speaking at a campaign event in 2018, Walz was talking about gun control and said, “We can make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at.” Walz, however, never saw combat.
“My record speaks for itself, but I think people are coming to get to know me. I speak like they do. I speak candidly. I wear my emotions on my sleeves, and I speak especially passionately about—about our children being shot in schools and around—around guns. So I think people know me. They know who I am,” Walz said.
“And the idea that you said that you were in war, did you misspeak, as the campaign has said?” Bash asked.
“Yeah, I said—we were talking about in this case, this was after a school shooting, the ideas of carrying these weapons of war. And my wife, the English teacher, told me my grammar’s not always correct. But again, if it’s not this, it’s an attack on my children for showing love for me, or it’s an attack on my dog. I’m not gonna do that, and the one thing I’ll never do is I’ll never demean another member’s service in any way. I never have and I never will,” Walz replied.
Tim Walz addresses his false claim that he served "in war," blames his poor grammar: 'People are coming to get to know me, I speak like they do' pic.twitter.com/hIPc2G6CRe
— Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) August 30, 2024
Bash then asked Walz why voters should trust him when he falsely claimed that he and his wife used IVF and “repeatedly made false statements” about his 1995 DUI arrest.
“Well, I’ve been very public. I think they can see my students come out—former folks I’ve served with, and they—and they do, they vouch for me. I certainly own my mistakes when I make them. The one thing I’ll tell you is I wished in this country we wouldn’t have to do this. I spoke about our infertility issues because it’s hell, and families know this. And I spoke about the treatments that were available to us that had those beautiful children there. That’s quite a contrast in folks that are trying to take those rights away from us,” Walz said.
Trump, Harris’ opponent, responded to the interview on his Truth Social platform, saying: I look so forward to Debating Comrade Comrade [sic] Kamala Harris and exposing her for the fraud she is. Harris has changed every one of her long held positions, on everything. America will never allow an Election WEAPONIZING MARXIST TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.”
The full interview can be viewed here, here, and here.
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
