Kamala Harris can no longer hide her extremism, telling a CNN town hall Wednesday that the Senate filibuster should be thrown away to unblock her radical agenda.
The proposal was one of the few semi-coherent responses Harris gave as she spent much of the event rambling - one might even say filibustering.
The filibuster is a political tactic, sometimes known as "talking a bill to death," in which lawmakers delay or block a vote with prolonged debate.
While not part of the Constitution, the filibuster is often seen as a key element of the U.S. Senate, which was meant to be the more deliberative body of Congress.
In recent years, Democrats have pushed to end the Senate filibuster for the very reason its defenders say that it exists - to block injudicious or oppressive schemes from getting rammed through with a bare majority.
Harris brought up the filibuster Wednesday night when asked how she would deliver on one of her main campaign promises.
Host Anderson Cooper asked Harris how she would codify Roe v. Wade without the 60 votes needed to end debate.
Harris' response was to point to the filibuster, before quickly pivoting to her stump speech about Trump and abortion. Removing the filibuster would allow legislation to pass the Senate with just 51 votes.
"I think we need to take a look at the filibuster, to be honest with you,” Harris replied.
“But the reality of it is this: Let’s talk about how we got here. When Donald Trump was president, he hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undermine the protections of Roe v. Wade and they did as intended,” she said.
With or without the filibuster, Democrats are facing an uphill battle to holding onto their narrow Senate majority. Democratic Senate candidates in key states have been distancing themselves from Harris and even tying themselves to Trump ahead of Election Day.
As her campaign stalls in the home stretch, Harris' tone has grown noticeably darker. She flatly responded, "yes, I do," when Cooper asked if she believe Trump is a "fascist."
While she targets the filibuster, Harris did quite a bit of filibustering herself during Wednesday's town hall.
Like she has done in previous interviews, Harris responded to many questions with garbled, evasive answers. When Cooper asked her to name one mistake she made in the past, she responded with this:
'"I mean, you know if you‘ve ever parented a child you know, you make lots of mistakes to, um, in my role as vice president, I mean, I‘ve probably worked very hard at making sure that I am well versed on issues."
Cooper: Is there [a mistake] you can point to in your life that you have learned from?
Harris: I mean, you know if you‘ve ever parented a child you know, you make lots of mistakes to, um, in my role as vice president, I mean, I‘ve probably worked very hard at making sure that I… pic.twitter.com/Pv9cY0FS04
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) October 24, 2024
Her performance received mixed reviews even from liberals like CNN's Dana Bash, who warned that Harris failed to "close the deal" with undecided voters.
