"My values have not changed": Harris defends policy in first interview as candidate

In Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s first interview with CNN, Harris explains some key policy changes she has made since becoming the Democratic nominee for president.

Harris, who has taken a more conservative position on immigration and backed off of her support for a ban on fracking since her first campaign for president, told CNN’s Dana Bash that it was a matter of experience, not values.

“How should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made? Is it because you have more experience now and you’ve learned more about the information?” Bash asked. “Should they feel comfortable and confident that what you’re saying now is going to be your policy moving forward?”

Harris, who took the post at the top of the ticket last month, championed her record and openness to act.

“I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,” she said. “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.”

Harris, who also shut down a question on Trump’s smear that she “all of a sudden” became Black, calling the racial attack the “same old, tired playbook,” was previously criticized by some for failing to sit for an interview with major media outlets since becoming the presidential nominee, before the CNN interview.

In what may come as a surprise, Harris also says she's keeping herself open to appointing a Republican to her cabinet.

“I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion. 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,” Harris said. “And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican.”