Vice President Kamala Harris pledged Thursday to appoint a Republican to her Cabinet if elected, saying she believes it is critical to hear diverse points of view during her term.
“I think it’s important to have people at the table when important decisions are being made who have different points of view and experiences,” she said in an interview with CNN. “And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican.”
The pledge came as part of a wide-ranging conversation with CNN, marking her first major television interview since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee in late July. Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, also participated in the interview, which was conducted in Savannah, Georgia.
In an initial segment released Thursday afternoon, Harris also downplayed the instances in which she has changed her policy positions, insisting that her values remain the same as when she first ran for president in 2019.
Harris also briefly dismissed GOP candidate Donald Trump’s claim that she “accidentally became black” after ignoring that part of her heritage, calling it part of “the same old, tired playbook,” according to CNN.
The full interview, set to air later Thursday night, is expected to cover a number of topics, including the economy, foreign policy and President Joe Biden’s decision to abandon his re-election bid and instead endorse Harris for the Democratic nomination.
Harris has faced mounting pressure to sit for an interview in recent weeks amid questions about the specifics of her policy ambitions and vision for her administration. Harris has largely embraced Biden’s agenda and pledged to build on it, while declining to specify areas in which she would break with the current president, both in her domestic priorities and in her approach to foreign relations.
In the interview segment, Harris told CNN that “my values haven’t changed,” even though she has backed off of policies she supported in 2019, such as Medicare for All and a ban on fracking.
“I think the most important and significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is that my values have not changed,” she said, pointing to the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act that included a series of climate provisions. “I’ve always believed, and I’ve worked to believe, that the climate crisis is real, that it’s an urgent issue that we need to apply metrics to that mean we hold ourselves to deadlines.”
