Vice President Kamala Harris told CNN on Thursday she would appoint a Republican to her Cabinet if elected president in November.
“I’ve got 68 days to go with this election, so I’m not putting the cart before the horse,” Harris told Dana Bash. “But I would, I think. I think it’s really important. I have spent my career inviting diversity of opinion.”
“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,” she added. “And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican.”
Past presidents including George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have all picked members of the opposing party to join as senior members of their administrations in an effort to portray themselves as a unity figure.
Harris spoke with CNN for her first formal interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. She was joined by her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D).
In the interview, Harris also defended her record when asked about her support for progressive policies during her 2020 presidential bid, like so-called Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and restructuring the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, also known as ICE. Republicans have criticized Harris for now backing away from those positions, accusing her of being a “flip-flopper.”
Harris told CNN on Thursday that “my values have not changed.”
“I have always believed — and I’ve 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,” Harris said. “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 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,” she added. “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 humans beings across our border. My values have not changed.”
