Key Takes From Harris' First Substantive Interview

During her first interview since she entered the presidential race, US Vice-President Kamala Harris had to defend changing her stand on key issues. 

Speaking on why her policies on immigration and climate have changed since she ran for president in 2019, she said,

"I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed."

Ms Harris was under pressure to finally face questions but she shared the 27-minute, pre-recorded interview with her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, however, described it as "boring" on his Truth Social.

The vice-president was forced to defend the White House's economic track record, as inflation and high cost-of-living prices continue to hurt Americans.

While polls have suggested that voters would prefer Mr Trump's views on economy, the most tense exchanges centred on the evolution of Harris' policy positions.

When asked about fracking and climate change position, Harris simply made reference to her effort to address climate change and support of the Green New Deal, a Democratic proposal to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, as something that remains a steadfast value when pressured about her shifting policy positions.

She said, "I have always believed, and I've worked on it, that the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter."

The vice-president highlighted the Biden administration's efforts through the Inflation Reduction Act, which allocated hundreds of billions of dollars toward renewable energy and electric vehicle tax credits and rebate programs.

"We have established targets for the United States, and by extension the world, regarding timelines for achieving specific greenhouse gas emission reductions," she stated.

However, Ms. Harris did not elaborate on her shift in stance regarding a ban on fracking, a method used to extract gas and oil from shale rock, which is especially prominent in the key swing state of Pennsylvania.

On immigration, As a senator and during her 2020 presidential campaign, Ms. Harris held more progressive views on immigration, advocating for the closure of immigration detention centers and the decriminalization of illegal border crossings. However, when discussing "securing our border," she asserted that her core values remain unchanged and cited her experience prosecuting transnational criminal organizations as California's attorney general.

Earlier this year, the vice-president endorsed a tough bipartisan border security deal that allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for border wall construction. Although Trump pressured Republicans in Congress to block the deal, Ms. Harris has pledged to sign it into law if elected, reaffirming this commitment in a CNN interview.

To justify her more moderate stance on immigration, the Democratic nominee explained to CNN that her experiences traveling the country as vice-president have convinced her of the importance of building consensus and finding common ground to address issues effectively. In this spirit, Ms. Harris vowed to include a Republican in her presidential cabinet, fulfilling her promise to be a president "for all Americans." She emphasized the value of diverse perspectives in making critical decisions.

When asked about the ongoing war in Gaza, Ms. Harris reiterated the White House's position, calling for both Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement and stressing that Palestinians deserve their own state alongside Israel. She stated, "This war must end, and we must secure a deal that prioritizes the release of hostages." However, she declined to commit to an arms embargo on Israel, as some within her party's left wing have demanded.

Part of the highlights was Walz who said 'passion' led to misstatements.

For example, Mr Walz, who served for decades in the US National Guard, had to clarify a comment he in made in which he said he "carried" an assault rifle in "war" when his campaign says that Mr Walz was never in a war zone.

In defence, the governor said he wore "his emotions on his sleeve" and was "speaking passionately" about the subject of gun crime in schools when he made the inaccurate statement.

That "passion" also extended to his incorrect assertion that his wife had received in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments - which have become a political lightning rod in the US debate over abortion access - to conceive their children.

She received intrauterine insemination, not IVF, though doctors have said that the two fertilisation treatments are often referred to interchangeably.

Mr Walz said his record speaks for itself. He said he did not believe that Americans were "cutting hairs" between the two.

Harris described the moment that President Biden called her to share that he had decided to end his re-election bid in July.

"My first thought was not about me, to be honest with you, my first thought was about him," Ms Harris said when asked whether she asked for his endorsement.

The vice-president also maintained that the president could have served again.

"He is so smart, and I have spent hours upon hours with him being in the Oval Office and in the situation room. He has the intelligence, the commitment and judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president."

She said Trump, by contrast, had none of those qualities.

This was Harris' first substantive interview since Mr Biden exited race.

Ms Bash, the CNN journalist who conducted the interview of Ms Harris and Mr Walz, was one of the moderators of the 27 June debate between Mr Biden and Trump.

Mr Biden's disastrous performance in that debate was widely seen as what sparked the effort for the president to withdraw from the race.