In a wide-ranging interview with CNN, the first major interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris said that she wants to add a Republican to her Cabinet should she win the election in November.
Harris, flanked by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate, also said that despite some shifts in positions on issues like fracking, the Green New Deal and immigration, her "values have not changed."
The two principals on the Democratic ticket touched on a number of topics in the interview with CNN's Dana Bash, ranging from the phone call where President Joe Biden told Harris he was exiting the race to Walz responding to Republican attacks about his military record.
Harris was pressed on her changing stance on a range of issues, from her position on fracking to decriminalizing border crossings.
"I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed," Harris said.
On fracking, a key issue in a must-win state like Pennsylvania, Harris said that she "made clear" during the 2020 Democratic presidential debates that she "would not ban fracking."
"As vice president, I did not ban fracking," she added. "As president, I will not ban fracking ... we can grow a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking."
She also pointed to the fact that as vice president, she "cast the tie-breaking vote" on a measure int he Senate that increased fracking leases. "So I'm very clear about where I stand.
"You mentioned the Green New Deal," Harris continued, referencing the package of proposals aimed at combatting climate change championed by progressives but demonized by Republicans. "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," she continued, referencing the climate change and tax reform bill that Democrats passed in 2022 without Republican support; Harris cast the tie-breaking vote on the bill in the Senate. "We have set goals for the United States of America and, by extension, the globe, around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as an example. That value has not changed."
On immigration, Harris addressed her role addressing the root causes of migration from Central America -- one which Republicans have sought to brand as the Biden administration's "border czar," even though that wasn't her role -- expressing success in that regard. She blamed former President Donald Trump for lobbying to kill a bipartisan border bill that would have tightened border security "because he believes that it would not have helped him politically" and vowed to sign it into law if elected.
“I believe there should be consequence," she said. "We have laws that have to be followed and enforced, that address and deal with people who cross our border illegally, and there should be consequence."
She also pointed to her record as California's attorney general when talking about "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 organizations, violations of American laws regarding the passage -- illegal passage -- of guns, drugs and human beings across our border, my values have not changed," Harris said.
"So that is the reality of it, and four years of being vice president, I’ll tell you, one of the aspects, to your point, is traveling the country extensively,” Harris said, referencing the fact that she has made 17 visits to Georgia since becoming vice president, including her two-day swing through the southern part of the Peach State. “I believe it is important to build consensus, and it is important to find a common place of understanding of where we can actually solve problems.”
When Harris got one of the most important phone calls of her career -- President Biden telling her he was dropping out of the race -- she was at home making pancakes and bacon for her nieces before launching into work on a puzzle.
"And then the phone rang, it was Joe Biden and he told me what he had decided to do," she recalled, adding that she asked Biden if he was sure about his decision.
When asked about getting Biden's endorsement, Harris replied: "My first thought was not about me, to be honest with you. My first thought was about him."
She went on to say that she believs history will see Biden's presidency as "transformative," pointing to his record on infrastructure and rebuilding international alliances.
"I think history is going to show not only has Joe Biden led an administration that has achieved those extraordinary successes, but the character of the man is one that he has been in his life and career, including as a president, quite selfless and puts the American people first," Harris added.
Harris was also asked about her defense of Biden's capacity to serve another four years and if she regretted that stance. Her response: "Not at all."
"I have spent hours upon hours with him, being in the Oval Office or the Situation Room, he has the intelligence, the commitment and the judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president," she said. "By contrast, the former president has none of those things."
When asked about the number of Republican speakers at the Democratic National Convention last week, Harris was asked about adding a member of the GOP to her Cabinet if elected.
"Yes I would," she said.
Harris added that she did not have a name in mind -- "I’ve got 68 days to go with this election, so I’m not putting the cart before the horse" -- but she said it would be "important" to have a bipartisan team of advisers.
"I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion," she said. "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, different experiences. And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican."
Harris addressed Trump's attacks on her race, falsely accusing her of only identifying as Black in recent years for political expediency: "Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please."
"That's it?" CNN's Bash asked.
"That's it!" Harris replied.
Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican-American immigrant father and an Indian-American immigrant mother, identifies as both Black and Asian-American, attended a historically Black university, joined a Black sorority at Howard University and served as the president of the Black Law Students Association at the University of California College of the Law. As a senator, she was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Trump, for his part, appeared to pan the interview on Thursday night, writing on his Truth Social platform: "BORING!!!"
The Minnesota governor -- who skyrocketed to national prominence after branding Trump and his running mate JD Vance as "weird" -- has been the subject of a number of attacks from Republicans since joining the Democratic ticket, on everything from his military record to his dog.
Vance, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, accused Walz of "stolen valor" earlier this month over a comment he made about "weapons of war that I carried in war" in relation to gun control. Harris' campaign later said Walz misspoke.
"I'm incredibly proud of 24 years of wearing uniform for this country," Walz said on Thursday, adding: "My record speaks for itself, but I think people are coming to get to know me, I speak like they do. I speak candidly, I wear my emotions on my sleeves, and I speak especially passionately about our children being shot in schools and around guns."
"I think people know me, they know who I am, they know where my heart is, and again, my record has been out there for 40 years to speak for itself," he added.
Walz went on to say that he misspoke in his comments in the aftermath of a school shooting, before pushing back on the bevy of Republican attacks against various aspects of his background: "If it's not this, it's an attack on my children for showing love for me, or it's an attack on my dog. I'm not going to do that. And the one thing I'll never do is I'll never demean another member's service in any way. I never had and I never will."
Walz has also had to clarify comments he made about his family's fertility journey -- he and his wife have talked about in virto fertilization, but they actually used a different procedure known as intrauterine insemination, or IUI -- and address his 1995 DUI arrest. Bash asked what he would say to voters who may be unsure about his background and comments.
"I've been very public," he said, noting that American voters can see his former students and people he served with vouch for him. "I certainly own my mistakes when I make them.
"I think people know who I am," Walz added. "They know that record ... I've been out there, and I won't apologize for speaking passionately, whether it's gun in schools or protecting reproductive rights, the contrast could not be clear between what we're running against."
The vice president said that day one of a Harris administration would be devoted to implementing her "opportunity economy," talking about her economic proposals aimed at easing financial burdens on Americans and investing in small businesses and families, including a Child Tax Credit of $6,000 for newborns and a $25,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers.
Bash pressed Harris on voters who might want to turn back the clock to lowered prices under Trump. Harris responded by charging that Trump mismanaged COVID-19, while the Biden administration's policies helped the country rebound from the pandemic recession.
"A lot of our policies are have led to the reality that America recovered faster than any wealthy nation around the world, but you are right -- prices, in particular for groceries, are still too high," she acknowledged. "The American people know it, I know it."
"We had to recover as an economy, and we have done that," she said, calling the Biden administration's economic proposals as "good work -- there's more to do, but that's good work."
"Donald Trump said he was going to do a number of things because including allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, never happened," the vice president said. "We did it."