CNN anchor Erin Burnett marveled at some of the far-left policy positions that Vice President Kamala Harris had when she was a presidential candidate in 2019.
Burnett spoke to CNN senior Andrew Kaczynski on the network Monday night about a recently uncovered ACLU candidate questionnaire Harris filled out in 2019 that revealed her support for several far-left policies. According to the reporter, Harris pledged on the form she would do away with detaining illegal immigrants at the border and even look for ways to provide taxpayer funding for migrants who wanted gender-transitioning medical procedures.
"Taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained migrants? She actually said she supported that?" Burnett asked, her tone suggesting she was struggling to accept the notion.
Kaczynzski, whose team recently uncovered and reported on the 2019 questionnaire, remarked to Burnett how it revealed "an interesting snapshot in time" of the 2019 Democratic presidential primary when Harris was "trying to get to the left of Bernie Sanders, she was trying to get to the left on Elizabeth Warren."
The reporter focused on the immigration portion of the questionnaire, telling Burnett that the then-presidential candidate stated she wanted to end funding for ICE and push for gender operations for illegal immigrants.
After Burnett expressed surprise that Harris supported taxpayer dollars funding migrants' gender transitions, Kaczynski replied, "She both wrote and answered in the affirmative when she was asked this, and she said she also supported it for federal prisoners."
The reporter continued with Harris’ far-left pledges on the immigration front. "Now she also pledged to slash immigration detention by 50%, close all family and private facilities, and decrease funding for ICE, and then end ICE detainers with local law enforcement."
Incredulous to these policy positions, Burnett chimed in, saying, "I mean these are things that you know, it would be hard to think that you would come up with taxpayer funding gender transitions for detained migrants, and yet as you say, written and verbally."
These left-leaning positions are a far cry from how 2024 presidential candidate Harris has promised to secure the southern border if she gets to the White House. The Harris campaign said last month that it will "ensure sufficient resources to enforce our laws and prioritize detention" for those threatening public safety and national security at the border.
Burnett and Kaczynski called out the Harris administration last week for using images of U.S. border wall built during the Trump administration in a recent campaign ad, even though she had condemned his wall as "useless" for years.
The reporter remarked, "That is a portion of wall that was actually built by Donald Trump. It was built in area where there was not previous wall, it was actually pretty controversial when they were building it at the time."
Burnett asked, "She’s using his wall that he built to say, ‘Look at what I did’?"
During their Monday interview, Burnett and Kaczynski moved on to talking about Harris stating on the questionnaire that she would support the federal government decriminalizing all illegal drug possession.
"It’d mean the federal – all drug possession that’s not just marijuana, that she alluded to in her answer to this question, but it also would mean… fentanyl, crack, you know, cocaine. Things like that."
When asked for a response, the Harris campaign pointed Fox News Digital to a statement from campaign comms director Michael Tyler that he gave on Fox News Channel Tuesday morning.
During the segment he said, "Yeah, again, I mean that questionnaire – this is not what she is proposing. It's not what she's running on. You want to talk about immigration or border security? She has been very clear about what she – how she has governed and how she intends to govern if she is president of the United States. You talk about border security, for example, she has made very clear that the bipartisan border security package that Donald Trump blew up because he thought it would benefit him politically – if it gets on her desk, she will sign it into law."
