Kamala Harris stumbled through a "fact check" on fracking during her first major interview as a presidential candidate.
While running for president in 2019, Harris stated unequivocally that she supported a fracking ban, but she has since reversed her position without explanation.
In a humiliating spectacle, Harris struggled to explain her change in perspective to CNN's Dana Bash.
"In 2019 you said, quote, 'There is no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.' Fracking, as you know, is a pretty big issue, particularly in your must-win state of Pennsylvania," Bash said.
When asked to clarify her position, Harris said she does not support a ban and that she made herself "clear" the first time.
"No, and I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020, that I would not ban fracking. As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking."
Bash read Harris' 2019 comments a second time and asked when, and why, her position changed. Harris repeated her non-answer.
"In 2020 I made very clear where I stand. We are in 2024, and I have not changed that position, nor will I going forward. I kept my word, and I will keep my word."
Harris was accompanied by Tim Walz in the joint interview, which was highly anticipated after Harris spent the first month of her campaign ducking the press.
The vice president showed her tendency to ramble with "word salad" answers, repeating the phrase "my values have not changed" as Bash questioned her policy shifts.
"You mentioned the Green New Deal," Harris said. "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."
When asked to lay out her "day one" priorities, Harris talked vaguely about lifting up the middle class and started criticizing Donald Trump, although she lost command of her talking points rather quickly.
"I think sadly in the last decade, we have had in the former president someone who has really been pushing an agenda and an environment that is about diminishing the character and the strength of who we are as Americans — really dividing our nation. And I think people are ready to turn the page on that."
