Fact-Checking Kamala Harris’ CNN Interview

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash Thursday for her first interview since launching her campaign. Harris answered over a dozen questions during the pre-recorded interview. 

Harris’ running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz joined Harris for the interview, a move which many Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, criticized.

Here’s a look at some of the statements Harris made during her interview.

1. ‘Diversity of Opinion’

The current vice president, a lifelong progressive Democrat, sought to appeal to moderate voters, even telling Bash she would appoint a Republican to her cabinet in the interest of “diversity of opinion.” 

“I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion,” Harris said. 

Harris’ record, however, indicates her invitation for diverse options is limited. 

While Harris was serving as California attorney general in 2016, California investigators searched pro-life activist David Daleiden’s home. Daleiden had recorded undercover video of Planned Parenthood. 

“The fact that Ms. Harris is seizing private property of a pro-life California activist who has exposed horrific practices conducted by Planned Parenthood … is a conflict of interest and abuse of government power,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, said at the time. 

Harris has also been accused of targeting conservative organizations because under her leadership as attorney general, California required organizations receiving donations to “file copies of their federal IRS Form 990 tax forms,” according to America First Legal. 

“These forms include a list of all donors who contributed at least $5,000 to the charity in a given year,” the legal group explains. But, in 2021, the Supreme Court held in the case of Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta that mandatory disclosures were a violation of the First Amendment. 

America First Legal says it believes that Harris may have “sought donor information about her political enemies without complying with federal law designed to protect donor privacy.” 

2. Immigration and Southern Border

President Joe Biden tasked Harris in the third month of his presidency with “leading the administration’s diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras,” according to a White House fact sheet. 

But as Bash pointed out during her interview with Harris, a historic number of illegal aliens have arrived on America’s southern border under the Biden-Harris administration. 

“Why did the Biden-Harris administration wait three and a half years to implement sweeping asylum restrictions?” Bash asked, referencing Biden’s executive order giving him authority to close the border when the seven-day average of daily border crossings between ports of entry exceeds 2,500. 

Harris did not address Biden’s executive order but told Bash that “the number of immigrants coming from that region has actually reduced since we began that work,” referring to her work to address the root causes of immigration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. 

Since March 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the Border Patrol has encountered over 1.9 million illegal aliens from El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras along the southern border, the same number of total illegal aliens the agency said it encountered during all four fiscal years of the Trump administration. 

Between the start of fiscal year 2017 on Oct. 1, 2016, and the end of fiscal year 2020 on Sept. 30, 2020, which represents most of the time Donald Trump was president, the Border Patrol encountered a total of 1,952,654 illegal aliens from nations around the world at the southern border, according to CBP data.

When combined, the number of encounters of illegal aliens from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras fell to 25,011 in June, a new low not seen since Trump’s last month in office.  

3. Fracking

Bash reminded Harris Thursday night that in 2019, Harris said “there is no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,” 

“Do you still want to ban fracking?” 

“No, and I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020 that I would not ban fracking,” Harris said. “As vice president I did not ban fracking, as president I will not ban fracking.”  

During her debate with then Vice President Mike Pence in 2020, Harris twice said, “Joe Biden will not ban fracking.”

4. ‘Opportunity Economy’ 

The economy and inflation remain the top issues for voters in the 2024 election. If elected, Harris says she will begin “implementing my plan for what I call an opportunity economy” on day one.

The Democratic candidate’s economic plan includes “what we’re going to do to bring down the cost of everyday goods, what we’re going to do to invest in America’s small businesses, what we’re going to do to invest in families, for example, extending the child tax credit to $6,000 for families for the first year of their child’s life,” Harris said. “There’s the work that we’re going to do that is about investing in the American family around affordable housing, a big issue in our country right now.” 

But Harris’ economic plan has all the elements of “21st-century socialism,” according to Daniel Lacalle, economist and fund manager. In a recent column for The Daily Signal, Lacalle says Harris’ plan to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy will result in “more inflation, a hidden tax, for you.”

“Following the Harris plan, the United States public debt will likely increase by $24 trillion in a decade,” according to Lacalle. 

America’s national debt has increased over $7 trillion since the start of the Biden-Harris administration. 

5. Failed ‘Border Security Bill’

After more than 10 million illegal alien encounters on America’s borders under the Biden administration, border security has become a top issue for Americans. Trump has been highly critical of Biden and Harris for their handling of the southern border, but Harris blamed Trump Thursday for the failure of a border bill which did not pass out of the Senate earlier this year. 

Trump “told his folks in Congress, don’t put it forward,” Harris said of the bill that was negotiated between a groups of Senate Republicans and Democrats. “He killed a bill, a border security bill that would have put 1,500 more agents on the border.”

In addition to more agents, the bill would have also allowed 5,000 illegal aliens to cross the border daily. Over 1.8 million illegal aliens a year still would be permitted to enter the United States under the now twice failed bill. 

Trump was critical of the bill on Truth Social, writing, “Only a fool, or a Radical Left Democrat, would vote for this horrendous Border Bill.”  

Bash pressed Harris on the issue further, asking her if she would support decriminalizing illegal border crossings, a position Harris indicated support for during a debate in 2019. 

“I believe there should be consequences,” Harris said without specifying what those consequences should be. 

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