Kamala Harris vows tougher migration and support for sending weapons to Israel.

Kamala Harris promised a more stringent policy on migration across the U.S. southern border. She expressed staying committed to not withholding weapons to Israel in the first interview with a significant news organization since becoming the Democratic nominee for president.

In an interview with CNN anchor Dana Bash, Harris tried to show she was in control of the issues and convey to Americans a sense of her policy stances a little more than two months before Election Day on November 5.

They 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 consequences,” Harris said.

She also hewed closely to President Joe Biden’s strong support of Israel. She 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. Yediot Ahronot quoted her as saying, “I support a strong Israel, but ‘we must get a deal done’ to get a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict.”.

“Oh no, we have to get a ceasefire and hostage deal done,” Harris said when asked if she would hold back weapons to Israel. She has been with Biden since day one of his presidency as vice president.

Abbas Alawieh, a cofounder of the Uncommitted National Movement, which has taken to the streets in protest against Biden’s policy, said, “I’m infuriated by Harris’s response about Gaza. “If the vice president is interested in a ceasefire, she must support an immediate stop to sending the fire,” Alawieh said.

Harris, joined by her vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, also said she would like to add a Republican to her cabinet if she wins the election. “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 benefit the American public to have a member of my cabinet who was a Republican,” she said.

Since receiving the Democratic nomination for president last month, Harris has enjoyed a rise in the polls, with hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into her campaign coffers and a series of forceful campaign speeches.

She leads Trump 45% to 41% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Thursday, which showed that the vice president is sparking new enthusiasm among voters. Some critics had speculated that she might be less refined in a free-flowing format such as a television interview, but she made no significant gaffes on Thursday.

Harris defended how she and Biden have handled the issue, noting they inherited an economy ruined by the pandemic. She said Trump’s mismanagement of the economy was to blame. She said much work had been done to lower prices, but that “prices are still too high.” 

Jeremi Suri, a history and public affairs professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said Harris sounded knowledgeable and a “consensus builder” in the interview. Still, she could have had more “concrete and specific answers” on what she would do on her first day as president.

Harris had moved more towards the center on some issues from when she ran for president in 2020 until she took over from Biden last month as the Democrats’ choice to face Republican former President Donald Trump in the election. 

She has toughened her position on migration across the southern U.S. border with Mexico. She no longer favors banning fracking, a method of producing energy that creates many jobs in Pennsylvania, one of only a handful of states that could decide who wins the election.

When pressed on the changes in her policies, Harris said, “My values have not changed.”

That was before Harris dismissed Trump’s comment that he didn’t believe that she was a Black American. “Same old tired playbook,” she said. Next question, please.” By the way, Trump responded to the interview Truth Social generated: “I look so forward to Debating Comrade Kamala Harris and exposing her for the fraud she is.” Trump has often falsely described her as a Marxist.

While she has taken questions from journalists on the campaign trail and been interviewed recently on TikTok, she has not yet 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, co-moderator of the June 27 debate between Trump and Biden that led to the president’s exit from the race, interviewed Savannah, Georgia, where Harris and Walz were in the state on a campaign bus tour.