Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Vice President Kamala Harris was not moving to the middle on her policies but was instead trying to hide her leftist positions.
Partial transcript as follows:
COTTON: But, look, we know the race will probably come down to a few hundred thousand votes in a few states. President Trump has been campaigning hard and vigorously now for months. Obviously that’s going to increase in its pace as we get closer to the election, and President Trump is going to draw a sharp contrast with Kamala Harris who has supported things like decriminalizing illegal immigration or giving taxpayer-funded health insurance to illegal aliens or taking away health insurance on the job for 170 million Americans, banning gas cars, confiscating firearms. These are all —
(CROSSTALK)
KARL: What do you mean taking away health insurance? What are you talking about?
COTTON: She said when she ran for president that she wants to eliminate private health insurance on the job of 170 million Americans, Jon.
KARL: Yeah, I mean — I mean that is not her position now. She —
(CROSSTALK)
COTTON: How do you know that’s not her position? How do you know that’s not her position?
KARL: I mean, she said she no longer supports Medicare for all.
COTTON: She has not said that. She has not said that. She has not said that.
KARL: OK.
COTTON: Maybe anonymous aides on a Friday night have said that, but the last thing that she said —
(CROSSTALK)
KARL: But this was not a radical convention. I mean, she as you heard me go through with Bernie Sanders, she is not taking the positions of the far left of her party. She’s clearly making an effort to move to the middle.
COTTON: I did hear what you said to Senator Sanders and I thought it was clear that he’s very disappointed that she’s taking these efforts not to change her positions but to hide her positions, Jon.
The American people are totally justified to conclude that Kamala Harris is a dangerous San Francisco liberal based on what she campaigned on the last time she ran for president and what this administration has done for the last four years.
Again, you would have thought watching the Democratic convention last week that the Democrats are not in office, that they’re not in power, that they’re campaigning against an incumbent Republican, when in reality she’s been part of the failures of the Biden-Harris administration for four years. And when she campaigned for president in her own right, she did in fact promise things like decriminalizing —
KARL: I mean —
COTTON: — illegal immigration, taking away —
(CROSSTALK)
KARL: But that’s a position she’s clearly changed on and she said she has changed.
COTTON: No, she hasn’t.
KARL: Yes, yes, yes, she has.
COTTON: No, no, she has not.
KARL: Now, she —
COTTON: Jon, she has not said.
She’s not — you pointed out Senator Sanders repeatedly things that her campaign has said, anonymous aides speaking on background to reporters has said, well, she no longer believes these things.
Okay, maybe she has changed her position on things like taking away your health insurance and confiscating your gun. If she has changed her position, she owes it to the American people to come out and say —
KARL: OK.
COTTON: — in her own words when she changed and why she changed. That’s one reason why she needs to address the American people and speak to these questions because the only basis they have to conclude what she will be like as president is what she’s done for four years in this administration and what she said in her own voice in the last campaign. Remember, these are not like college essays, Jon, this is what she was said when she was campaigning for president as a 54-year-old woman. If she’s had such a radical change of heart in the last five years, she owes the American people answers.
Follow Pam Key on X @pamkeyNEN