By Andrea Shalal, Steve Holland and Stephanie Kelly
SAVANNAH, Georgia/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Kamala Harris vowed a tougher approach to migration along the U.S. southern border and said she would not withhold weapons to Israel, in her first interview with a major news organization since becoming the Democratic nominee for president.
Harris’ interview with CNN anchor Dana Bash reflected an effort to show she is in command of the issues and give Americans a sense of her policy positions with little more than two months until Election Day on Nov. 5.
Harris said she would renew a push for comprehensive border legislation that would tighten migration into the United States and vowed to “enforce our laws” against border crossings.
“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 said.
She also hewed closely to President Joe Biden’s strong support of Israel and rejected calls from some in the Democratic Party that Washington should rethink sending weapons to Israel because of the heavy Palestinian death toll in Gaza.
She said she supports a strong Israel but “we must get a deal done” to get a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict.
“No, we have to get a (ceasefire and hostage) deal done,” Harris said when asked if she would withhold weapons to Israel.
Since becoming the Democratic candidate for president last month, Harris has surged in the polls, brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations, and had a series of forceful campaign speeches.
Some critics suggested she might be less polished in unscripted settings like a TV interview but she appeared to make no major mistakes on Thursday.
Harris defended her and Biden’s handling of inflation, saying they inherited a pandemic-ravaged economy that she said Trump had mismanaged. She said much work had been done to lower prices but that “prices are still too high.”
Harris has moved more toward the center on some issues from the time she ran for president in 2020 until she took over from Biden as the Democrats’ choice to face Republican former President Donald Trump in the election.
She has toughened her position on migration along the southern U.S. border with Mexico. She also no longer wants a ban on fracking, an energy production method that employs many people in Pennsylvania, one of a handful of swing states that could decide the election.
Broadly speaking, Harris said of her shifts that “my values have not changed.”
Harris, joined by her vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, also discussed the possibility of adding a Republican to her potential cabinet, saying she wanted a 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. And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my cabinet who was a Republican,” she said.
Harris dismissed a comment from Trump in which he questioned whether she was a Black American. “Same old tired playbook,” she said. “Next question, please.”
FIRST ONE-ON-ONE INTERVIEW SINCE BIDEN EXIT
Though she has taken questions from journalists on the campaign trail and been interviewed on TikTok in recent days, she had, until Thursday, not done a one-on-one interview with a major network or print journalist since Biden ended his reelection campaign on July 21 and endorsed her.
Bash, who co-moderated the June 27 debate between Trump and Biden that hastened the president’s departure from the race, conducted the interview in Savannah, Georgia, as Harris and Walz were on a bus tour.
Harris’ lack of interviews has sparked criticism from opponents, and some concern among supporters, that she is less sharp in spontaneous settings than at rallies or speeches where she can use prepared remarks and a Teleprompter.
Trump frequently holds press conferences and offers interviews to conservative news outlets. He often uses them to criticize Harris and Biden rather than discuss his own policy aims in detail.
On Thursday, Harris campaigned in Savannah, Georgia and told a crowd of 7,500 that “we have some hard work ahead of us,” to defeat Trump. She said she was confident Georgia would vote Democratic again after a narrow win for Biden-Harris there in 2020.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; additional reporting by David Ljunggren and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Writing by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Editing by Heather Timmons, Jonathan Oatis, Howard Goller and Stephen Coates)
