Democrat presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris’s CNN interview further showed that the America First movement is “running against a system” and that Harris is a candidate the system “can control,” according to former 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy took to X Friday morning to share his thoughts on Thursday’s interview.
Kamala’s interview last night was a reminder that we’re not running against a candidate. We’re running against a *system*. They require a candidate they can control, which means having original ideas is a disqualification. That’s exactly why we get Biden, then Kamala, and so on.
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) August 30, 2024
“Kamala’s interview last night was a reminder that we’re not running against a candidate. We’re running against a *system,*” he emphasized.
“They require a candidate they can control, which means having original ideas is a disqualification. That’s exactly why we get Biden, then Kamala, and so on,” he added.
In 2019 Kamala Harris said she would absolutely ban fracking.
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) August 30, 2024
At present, she says she won’t ban fracking.
Tonight on CNN, she said her position on a fracking ban hasn’t changed.
At least 1 of those 3 statements has to be false. That’s not a partisan point, it’s just logic.
Harris’s pre-taped interview, in which her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), accompanied her, was her first wide-ranging interview since supplanting President Joe Biden as the presumptive nominee well over a month ago.
Conversely, the Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees, former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (OH), have regularly engaged in interviews, as have prominent surrogates, including former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Ramaswamy.
During the interview, Harris stressed that her “values have not changed” after CNN’s Dana Bash asked about her numerous policy position changes.
Bash asked:
Generally speaking, how should voters look at some of the changes that you’ve made — that you’ve explained some of here — in your policy, is it because you have more experience now and you’ve learned more about the information, is it because you were running for president in a Democratic primary? And should they feel comfortable and confident that what you’re saying now is going to be your policy moving forward?
“Dana, I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed,” Harris responded before defending her support of the Green New Deal and the Inflation Reduction Act, which did not actually reduce inflation:
You’ve 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 around time. We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act. We have set goals for the United States of America and, by extension, the globe, around when we should meet certain standards for a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as an example, that value has not changed. My value around what we need to do to secure our border, that value has not changed. I spent two terms as the attorney general of California, prosecuting transnational criminal organization[s], violations of American laws regarding the passage — illegal passage of guns, drugs, and human beings across our border. My values have not changed.
After the interview, political pundits and commentators, including CNN analysts and the New York Times, panned Harris, as Breitbart News noted.
For example, New York Times National Politics Reporter and CNN Political Analyst Astead Herndon said, “I don’t think there is a policy separation that they’ve created with Biden.”