CNN ripped Vice President Kamala Harris for flip-flopping on “a lot of issues” related to oil and energy, Tuesday, airing a montage of clips which showed how “extremely different” her positions were just a few years ago.
On CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront, Tuesday, host Erin Burnett played a clip of Harris boasting, “We have had the largest increase in domestic oil production in history because of an approach that recognizes that we cannot over-rely on foreign oil,” as well as a clip of Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz saying, “America’s producing more natural gas and more oil than at any time in our history.”
“Tonight, Governor Tim Walz cheering on the US oil industry, which echoes the same message that we’ve been hearing from Kamala Harris recently,” said Burnett. “But, as our K-File reports tonight, this is a very sharp turn from where Harris once stood on this issue not so very long ago.”
As the chyron read, “Harris once vowed to go after ‘Big Oil,’ now cheers on industry,” CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski replied:
Yeah, that’s right Erin, and this really shows sort of just how far left that Kamala Harris got in that 2019 Democratic primary when she was running with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. She was making this extremely bold promise that she was going to take the US oil industry, possibly criminally prosecute them for their role in climate change. She compared it to Big Tobacco, saying they knew the effects of climate change but they hid it from the public. Now, we saw there, fast forward t0 2024, what are her and Tim Walz doing? They are touting the record domestic oil production from those same oil companies during the Biden-Harris administration, and well, how big of a shift is this? Well, take a listen to just one of those comments from 2019.
Kaczynski then played a 2019 clip of Harris saying that big oil companies such as Shell and Chevron should be criminally charged or fined for their role in climate change.
“That was not the only time she made comments like this. This was very much a theme for her,” said Kaczynski before playing a montage of clips that showed Harris attacking oil companies “who are polluting our environment.”
Burnett acknowledged, “Obviously, that is extremely different from what she is presenting right now.”
“She’s flip-flopped on a lot of issues related to energy,” Kaczynski replied. “Take a look at just a few of them. She said she was going to ban plastic straws; she said she was going to ban fracking, we have heard a lot about that; and she said she would eliminate the filibuster to pass the Green New Deal. Now, she also ran Facebook ads during that campaign which were touting her support for the Green New Deal, which were saying that she was going to take on Big Oil for their role in contributing to climate change.”
He concluded, “Now why is she doing this, Erin? Well, a recent poll that came out from Gallup actually shows that climate change ranks as the second least important issue to voters in that poll.”
Watch above via CNN.
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