Vice President Harris is doing an about-face on several far-left policies as she distances herself from President Biden and attempts to make a name of her own as the Democratic presidential nominee.
In her first policy speech in North Carolina later this week and then next week at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Harris plans to present to Americans who she is and how she will govern essentially for the first time since Biden backed out of the race and endorsed her presidential campaign.
In recent weeks, Harris has shifted on at least five major policy stances: mandatory assault rifle buybacks, fracking, immigration, health care and a federal jobs guarantee.
While campaigning for president in 2019, she endorsed a mandatory buyback program for assault rifles.
“We have to have a buyback program, and I support a mandatory gun buyback program,” Harris said in October 2019, according to NBC News. “It’s got to be smart, we got to do it the right way. But there are 5 million [assault weapons] at least, some estimate as many as 10 million, and we’re going to have to have smart public policy that’s about taking those off the streets, but doing it the right way.”
In 2024, a Harris spokesperson says she wouldn’t push a mandatory buyback program for assault rifles.
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Harris also now contradicts what she stated during a September 2019 CNN Town Hall on fracking. An audience member asked at the time, “From contaminated groundwater to poisonous emissions – will you commit to implementing a federal ban on fracking your first day in office, adding the United States to the list of countries who have banned this devastating practice?”
“There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking, so yes,” Harris said then. “And starting – and starting with what we can do on day one around public lands, right? And then there has to be legislation, but yes – and this is something I’ve taken on in California. I have a history of working on this issue.”
In 2024, Harris’ campaign says the vice president “does not support a total ban on fracking.”
Five years ago, Harris called for decriminalizing border crossings and reconfiguring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
She also raised her hand on the NBC News debate stage on June 27, 2019, when host Jose Diaz-Balart asked, “We had a very spirited debate on this stage last night on the topic of decriminalization of the border. If you’d be so kind, raise your hand if you think it should be a civil offense rather than a crime to cross the border without documentation? Can we keep the hands up so we could see them?”
Now she calls for “strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship.”
Harris said she would eliminate private insurance and institute a single-payer health care program in 2019. She famously changed her “answer” the morning after the June 27, 2019, debated hosted by NBC News, saying she misunderstood the question and favored keeping supplemental private health insurance. She lost support from some progressives after the switch.
Harris and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had raised their hands when host Lester Holt asked debate participants, “Many people watching at home have health insurance through their employer. Who here would abolish their private health insurance in favor of a government-run plan?”
In 2024, the Harris campaign says she no longer supports a single-payer health insurance program.
The Biden administration has not pursued a federal jobs guarantee. However, there were two instances of Harris at the debates in 2019 supporting the Green New Deal, which included a federal jobs guarantee. And in one of the clips, CNN host Dana Bash goes on to note that right after her answer.
“We currently have a president in the White House who obviously does not understand the science. He’s been pushing science fiction instead of science fact. The guy thinks that wind turbines cause cancer, but what in fact they cause is jobs,” Harris said during the July 31, 2019, Democratic Debate hosted by CNN. “And the reality is that I would take any Democrat on this stage over the current President of the United States, who is rolling it back to our collective peril. We must have and adopt a Green New Deal. On day one as president.”
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Harris, short for time, added she would re-enter the Paris Agreement and aim to be carbon-neutral by 2030. “Thank you, Senator,” Bash interjects. “I want to talk about that with Senator Gillibrand. You’re a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, which includes the guarantee of a job with medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security for everyone in America. Explain how that’s realistic.”
Harris’ advisers privately told Axios this week that she wants to break with Biden’s unpopularity on the economy and rising prices.
In Raleigh on Friday, she will propose how to tackle lowering costs on health care, housing and food for middle-class consumers, as well as how she’ll “take on corporate price-gouging.”
Harris reportedly wants to present clearer, more urgent solutions on inflation, considered one of the largest domestic policy issues of her campaign. In their first joint trip since Biden discontinued his re-election campaign, he and Harris will make an appearance together in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The event is slated to discuss lowering costs for Americans.
While campaigning for president in 2019, Harris said she was against fracking, supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings and was in favor of single-payer health care, known as Medicare for All. Now, during her short, three-month window bid for the White House in 2024, she backtracked on all three.
She also copied Republican presidential nominee and former President Trump’s “no tax on tips” campaign promise after calculating how well it appealed in the swing state of Nevada to a key constituency of working class, largely immigrant service and hospitality employees.
In her snap campaign for president, Harris plans to capitalize on the fact that most people know little about her to unapologetically change some of her more liberal positions.
She’s aiming to bill herself as the change agent in the race and wants her focus on the cost of groceries to communicate that she better relates to typical households than Trump, according to Axios.
Gallup polling indicates 80% of U.S. adults are dissatisfied with the direction of the country.
The vice president said at rallies she would make fighting inflation a Day 1 priority if she is elected president in November despite already serving in the White House. This week, the Biden administration did announce an initiative to “Lower Costs for Families and Fight Corporate Rip-Offs.”
A new campaign video also paints Harris as coming from middle-class roots, as the vice president speaks of her job working at McDonald’s while attending Howard University.
Harris’ plan also centers on her record as a prosecutor, as she plans to highlight settlement wins in price-fixing cases as California attorney general, Axios reported.
Fox News’ Mary Schlageter contributed to this report.
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