Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris defended her record on immigration as vice president in a new interview on Thursday and blamed Republican rival Donald Trump for killing a bipartisan bill to address the US-Mexico border.
Harris said, Root Cause The relocation of Americans from the so-called Northern Triangle “has in fact brought numerous benefits, including historic investment by U.S. companies in the region.”
“Since we started this effort, the number of immigrants coming from that area has actually gone down,” she told CNN host Dana Bash in her first interview since becoming the Democratic candidate.
Harris said she and President Joe Biden, who lost his reelection bid in July, worked with Congress to craft bipartisan legislation that would help secure the border.
“Donald Trump was informed that this bill would help secure the border, but he didn’t think it would be politically helpful, so he told his colleagues in Congress, ‘Don’t submit it,'” Harris said.
“He killed a bill that would have put over 1,500 Border Patrol agents on the border,” she said.
Harris has vowed to sign the bill into law if she defeats Trump in the Nov. 5 election.
The comments came during the campaign’s first joint interview with Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Ms. Harris and Ms. Walz have come under fire from their Republican rivals, Mr. Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, for their lack of media presence.
The interview took place early Thursday morning at Kim’s Cafe in Savannah, Georgia.
Elsewhere in the interview, Harris responded to Trump’s bizarre claim that he only recently began to identify as black, calling it the “same old cliche” used by Republican candidates in the past.
Lectures National Association of Black JournalistsAt the Republican National Convention last month, President Trump claimed that Harris had “always been of Indian descent and was just promoting her Indian descent,” but that was not actually the case.
“Until a few years ago I didn’t know she was black, but she happened to be black and now she wants to be known as a black person,” the former president continued.
“He’s suggesting that you just happened to become black recently for political purposes, and he’s calling into question the very core of your identity,” Bash said in an interview Thursday.
Harris responded, “Well… the same boring old fashioned way of doing things. Next question please.”
Bash asked. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Harris said.
Harris also told Bash that if she beats Trump in the November election, she plans to choose Republicans for her Cabinet.
“I’ve spent my career encouraging diversity of opinion,” Harris said.
“I think it’s important that people with different views and experiences are at the table when the most important decisions are being made,” Harris said, “and I think it’s in the interest of the American people to have Republicans in the Cabinet.”
Harris also defended the centrist policy shift she has made since the 2019 presidential election.
“I think the most important and significant thing about my policy views and my decisions is that my values haven’t changed,” Harris told Bash, specifically highlighting her values on border security and climate change.
In the video, Bash asked Harris, “How should voters view some of the changes that you’ve made in your platform that I’ve outlined here?”
The Vice President raised two key issues to make his case.
“You mentioned the Green New Deal,” Harris said. “I’ve always believed and committed to the climate crisis, that it’s real and that it’s an urgent issue that should be subject to standards like deadlines.”
“We did that with the Inflation Control Act, which set a goal for the United States, and indeed the world, of when we had to achieve certain standards of greenhouse gas emission reductions,” she said.
“For example, its value has not changed.”
“My values about what we need to do to secure our border have not changed,” Harris added.
“As California’s Attorney General for two terms, I fought against transnational criminal organizations, violations of our laws, — Illegal traffic — “The flow of guns, drugs and people across the border continues,” she said. “My values haven’t changed.”
