Vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris appeared shocked during an interview with 60 Minutes this weekend after being reminded that she is one of the most liberal senators in Washington. She co-sponsored Medicare for All and endorsed the Green New Deal, as CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell pointed out. She opposes nearly all restrictions on abortion and regularly advocates for tax increases. But all Harris could offer in response to this point was a forced laugh that did little to assuage voters’ fear that she is the Trojan horse for leftism that President Trump has warned about.
The exchange between O’Donnell and Harris, though brief, revealed that Harris and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden have not thought through their campaign pitch. Biden is supposed to be the centrist running to uphold norms and restore decency, and Harris is supposed to be the person who helps him do that. But no one believes Biden will stand up to the Left’s power grab, given his unwillingness to condemn efforts to pack the Supreme Court and end the Senate’s filibuster. And voters need only look at Harris’s voting record to realize that she is no moderate, nor has she ever been.
The nonpartisan GovTrack ranked Harris as “the most liberal” compared to all other U.S. senators because she was the least likely to join bipartisan bills and because she either voted for or co-sponsored the most liberal bills possible. The leftists seem to agree because Americans for Democratic Action gave Harris a perfect liberal rating, as did Progressive Punch, which rated Harris the fourth-most liberal of all 100 senators. Not even Bernie Sanders can touch Harris’s score.
It’s not difficult to understand why. On the issues, there is nothing remotely moderate about Harris. She backed Medicare for All before deciding her best shot at political stardom was with Biden, and she supported the absurdly expensive and unrealistic Green New Deal to the point where she threatened to end the filibuster to pass it. Harris wants to ban right-to-work laws, decriminalize illegal immigration, provide healthcare coverage for illegal immigrants, implement a compulsory gun buyback (read: confiscation) program, and ban fracking, according to the votes she’s cast and the statements she’s made over the last few years.
Yet she expects voters to believe this record won’t affect her position in the White House. More than that, Harris dismisses and condescends toward those with concerns about her past positions. Just look at the way she responded to O’Donnell, who rightly pointed out that Harris’s platform now is much different from what it was this time last year.
“Joe Biden doesn’t support those things,” O’Donnell said, referencing Harris’s past votes. “So, are you going to bring the policies, those progressive policies you supported as senator, into a Biden administration?”
Harris responded: “What I will do, and I promise you this, and this is what Joe wants me to do, this was part of our deal, I will always share with him my lived experience as it relates to any issue that we confront. And I promised Joe that I will give him that perspective and always be honest with him.”
“And is that a socialist or progressive perspective?” O’Donnell asked.
“No, no,” Harris replied as she began to laugh at the question. “It is the perspective of, of a woman who grew up, a black child in America, who was also a prosecutor, who also has a mother who arrived here at the age of 19 from India. Who also, you know, l — likes hip-hop. Like, what do you wanna know?” Harris continued, still laughing.
The answer is simple. Voters want to know whether Harris will push Biden further to the left once in office. They want to know whether she’ll join the Left’s efforts to add seats to the Supreme Court, end the Senate’s filibuster, pass the Green New Deal, and push healthcare toward a socialist future. And by laughing these concerns off, Harris gave voters the only answer they need.
