Vice President Kamala Harris could be “playing politics” by allowing her subordinates to take the lead on her making major policy shifts, rather than pushing them herself, a Republican strategist says.
Unnamed officials have announced Harris’ new stance on key issues that she previously supported during her 2019 presidential run, such as fracking and “Medicare for All,” but Harris herself has not yet publicly addressed these position shifts.
While the Harris campaign appears to be pushing a reworked agenda, one political strategist told Fox News Digital that “anonymous on background campaign staffers do not take public policy positions, candidates and elected officials do.”
Dallas Woodhouse, State Director for American Majority-North Carolina, a nonprofit conservative training organization, said that Americans should assume that every position taken by Harris during her previous presidential campaign for President and the positions taken by the Biden-Harris administration are exactly hers today, “until she herself explains otherwise.”
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Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris waits to speak at a campaign rally at United Auto Workers Local 900 on August 8, 2024 in Wayne, Michigan. Kamala Harris and her newly selected running mate Tim Walz are campaigning across the country this week. (Andrew Harnik)
“The American public will never accept a candidate changing all their stated positions from just a few years ago without thorough examination and explanation,” he added.
1. Fracking
Harris said that she would ban fracking if elected during her first presidential bid – a key issue among a critical voting bloc in battleground states like Pennsylvania.
“There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking, I have a history of working on this issue,” Harris said in 2020.
Republicans, including former President Trump, have used her past comments on the issue to blast her in several campaign ads since she launched her 2024 campaign.
But campaign officials for the Democratic nominee are now saying that Harris will not ban fracking if she’s elected president.
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz appear on stage together during a campaign event at the Liacouras Center at Temple University on Aug. 6, 2024 in Philadelphia, Penn. (Andrew Harnik)
2. “Medicare for All”
Harris published a plan for “Medicare for All” during her 2019 presidential election, writing that her goal was to “end these senseless attacks on Obamacare” and that she believes “health care should be a right, not a privilege only for those who can afford it. It’s why we need Medicare for All.”
“The idea is that everyone gets access to medical care. And you don’t have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork all of the delay that may require. Let’s eliminate that,” Harris wrote in 2019.
Additionally, then-Senator Harris cosponsored Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Medicare for All Act of 2019.
Despite her past support, a campaign official told Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy that Harris will not push the subject of “Medicare-for-all” this cycle.
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Colin Reed, a Republican strategist, previous campaign manager, and co-founder of South and Hill Strategies, expressed skepticism regarding the credibility of Harris’ recent policy change.
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally at United Auto Workers Local 900 on Aug. 8, 2024 in Wayne, Mich. (Andrew Harnik)
“When Vice President Harris ran for the White House five years ago, she was a sitting U.S. Senator and the former attorney general of the largest state in the nation. In other words, an extremely accomplished individual with plenty of time on the national stage to form opinions on the big issues,” Reed told Fox. “The idea that she could, over the span of five changes, just change her tune on a dime on a slew of major big ticket items strains credulity,”
Reed highlighted her shift on “Medicare For All,” which he says “would cost $44 trillion dollars – more than our entire $35 trillion dollar national debt.”
“Either she was wrong then or is playing politics now, and voters will figure it out whenever she decides to answer questions in an unscripted setting.”
Fox News Digital asked the Harris campaign if she plans to personally announce her new stance on the key issues, but did not receive an initial response.
Former President Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally in Bozeman, Montana, on Friday, Aug. 9. (AP/Rick Bowmer)
Harris advisers told Axios that “Harris doesn’t want to be completely defined by the Biden-Harris record,” publishing a report that said she is seeking to distance herself from Biden on several issues, including his economic policies.
3. No Taxes on Tips
Under the current Biden-Harris Internal Revenue Service (IRS), taxpayers must report all tip money as income on their tax returns. Initially, she supported measures that allowed the IRS to track and tax workers’ tips, and even casted a tie-breaking vote in 2022 to pass legislation that increased IRS funding for this exact purpose.
However, Harris recently revealed that she supports ending taxes on tips for service worker employees – an idea floated earlier this summer by Trump, who received positive feedback on the idea.
“We’ll continue our fight for working families of America,” Harris said at a recent campaign rally. “Including minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.”
4. The Border Crisis
Vice President Kamala Harris has previously supported the rolling back of Trump-era border policies, but is taking a stronger position on the the southern border crisis this election cycle.
When record numbers of migrants were coming through the border in 2022, Harris said that “the border is secure,” during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Harris was criticized by border state Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, shortly thereafter, who told CNN that “the border is not secure.”
A group of over 100 migrants attempting to enter the U.S. illegally rush a border wall Thursday, March 21, 2024. In the process, the migrants knock down Texas National Guardsmen before they are stopped by the border wall. (James Breeden for New York Post / Mega)
Harris, however, has used her recent rallies to convince voters that tough border security is a top priority for her 2024 campaign.
Harris is also investing in a new narrative, recently putting out a border-related campaign ad, titled, “Tougher.”
“Kamala Harris has spent decades fighting violent crime. As a border state prosecutor, she took on drug cartels and jailed gang members for smuggling weapons and drugs across the border,” a narrator says. “As vice president, she backed the toughest border control bill in decades. And as president, she will hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking.”
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“Fixing the border is tough, so is Kamala Harris,” a voice in the ad can be heard saying.