Republican strategist Scott Jennings sparred with former Obama administration official David Axelrod on Thursday over Vice President Kamala Harris’s response to a question about policy changes.
Harris and Democratic Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota participated in an interview with CNN host Dana Bash, marking Harris’s first interview since President Joe Biden announced on July 21 that he would not seek reelection.
During a CNN panel discussion following the interview, Jennings questioned whether Harris’s recent policy changes suggested she might set aside her core values based on political advice.
“You said she was in 2019, that she was taking the state-of-the-art political advice and that’s why she did what she did,” Jennings said to Axelrod. “Wouldn’t that bother, if you didn’t know anything about this person who wanted to be the president, wouldn’t that bother you to know that they might have certain instincts or values, but they’re willing to set those aside as long as the political consultants-”
“I guess my answer to you is I would take some solace in the fact that they have values and principles and that they’re not entirely transactional,” Axelrod responded. “And that is a distinction with the candidate she is running against, but even that was, that was a good… he’s a marketer and he throws ideas out and he sees what lights up the crowd and then he goes at all and that’s how the wall came about.”
During the interview, Harris and Walz discussed several topics, including Harris’s role as “border czar,” her stance on hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” and her assurance that Biden was “fine” following his performance in a June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, which was hosted by CNN.
Harris has distanced herself from the policy positions she held on illegal immigration and gun control during her 2020 presidential campaign.
.@ScottJenningsKY: “There was no reflection at all on the day one executive actions or anything else [Kamala and Joe] did for 3 and a half years [to open our southern border] or anything she said in her previous campaign to have the most permissive immigration stricture.” pic.twitter.com/9OQOV7fNea
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 30, 2024
