CHRIS CRUCIAL: What does Kamala Harris *actually* believe?

PLUS: Release the health records!

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1. Kamala’s policy confusion

Amid her surging poll numbers and her talk of bringing back “joy” and “optimism” to politics, Kamala Harris still hasn’t explained in any real detail a) why she’s switched positions on so many policy fronts and b) what she now believes.

The latest evidence?

In 2020, when Harris was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, she said she supported requiring automakers to build only electric or hydrogen vehicles by 2035.

Now?

Her campaign said last week she no longer supports such a mandate. When Axios asked for clarification, the Harris campaign declined to comment.

Not great!

The issue here is that this is part of a much larger pattern. Consider:

• Fracking: At a 2019 CNN town hall on climate change, Harris said this: “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.” She has now said she does not support such a ban.

• The Wall: In 2017, Harris tweeted this: “Trump’s border wall is just a stupid use of money. I will block any funding for it.” She has now expressed support for a comprehensive immigration bill developed by the Senate that would have allocated $650 million to building new wall along the southern border

• Green New Deal: In 2019, Harris was a Senate co-sponsor of a resolution known as the Green New Deal that, according to the New York Times “called for converting the electric grid to 100 percent clean energy this decade, declared clean air, clean water and healthy food to be basic human rights. But it also endorsed free health care and affordable housing for all Americans.”

• Mandatory gun buyback: At a 2019 gun control forum sponsored by MSNBC, Harris said this: “We have to have a buyback program, and I support a mandatory gun buyback program.” A Harris campaign spokesman told The Hill newspaper recently that the vice president no longer supports a mandatory buyback program.

• “Medicare For All”: In 2019, when she ran for president Harris supported a plan that would create a single-payer, government-run healthcare system. Harris’ campaign says she no longer supports such a plan.

And here’s the thing: Those, um, policy shifts are all part of a designed strategy on the part of the Harris team. This, from Axios, is telling on that front:

A big part of the Harris plan is to unapologetically change some of her more liberal positions, and claim her White House experience helped change her mind. Yes, when she was running for president in 2019, she was against fracking, for decriminalizing illegal border crossings, and for single-payer health care (Medicare for All).

This is not new. Harris, in her time on the national stage, has never, really, made clear what she actually believes on a policy front. As I wrote in a deep dive into what went wrong with her 2020 presidential campaign:

Harris’ campaign was always built more around personality than policy — in direct contrast to, say, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who ran a policy-first (and policy only) campaign. That got Harris into trouble once she came under the heavier scrutiny that accompanies rising poll numbers. The biggest issue was that she couldn’t seem to get out of her own way on healthcare. At first Harris said she favored eliminating private health insurance entirely. But then she rolled out a plan that included private health companies in it. Which, huh?

Given that history, I struggle to swallow the spin that her time as vice president is what explains all of these policy shifts. Especially when you consider that every single one of them is Harris moving from a position liberals love to one centrists — and swing voters — prefer. Like, she never learned anything during her time in the White House that made her think a more liberal solution was the right way to go?

And the explanation that she and her campaign team have settled on — “my values have not changed” — doesn’t really fly either. If her values told her that single payer, government run healthcare was the right way to insure Americans get the best services possible, why does she no longer think that? And, presumably, her values informed her support for mandatory buybacks of assault weapons — an entirely defensible position aimed at taking weapons of war off the streets. But, now she doesn’t support it anymore? Why?

The answer to all of these questions is obvious: Politics. Harris staked out all of her more liberal policy positions when she thought that the path to the 2020 Democratic nomination would be to portray herself as a more electable Bernie Sanders. Now that she is the Democratic nominee, she is walking away from them because she needs to appeal to the electoral middle.

I get it! But it also makes me wonder — and should make you wonder too — whether she actually believes in any sort of specific policies. Or whether everything is negotiable based on her political circumstances.

2. How healthy are the candidates? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The election is in 62 days. And we know next to nothing about the health of either major party candidate.

Neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris has released medical and health records, a process that was standard practice up until the last few elections.

In an August interview with CBS, Trump, who is 78 years old, said he would “very gladly” release his medical records. He has not done so. CBS News also reported that it asked Harris’ campaign “multiple times for the results of any annual physical” but received no response. Harris is 59 years old.

Trump would be the oldest person ever elected to a first term as president. And his record of transparency on medical information is beyond bad.

When Trump first ran for president in 2016, he released a letter from his longtime doctor which proclaimed that “if elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” The doctor, who has since died, later said that Trump himself dictated the letter.

Trump underwent regular physicals as president but since leaving office has released very little information about his health.

In November 2023, Trump posted a letter on Truth Social from his (new ) personal physician claiming that the former president’s health was “excellent.” The letter offered no details.

Trump himself has said he “aced” several cognitive tests although his recounting of the tests he took have raised questions of their own.

Harris has never released a detailed accounting of her health. She did not do so — and was not required to do so — when she ran for president in 2020 or when he was elected vice president later that year.

3. Donald Trump admits he lost the 2020 election

In his interview with podcaster Lex Fridman — which I broke down here — Donald Trump made an odd admission: That he lost the 2020 presidential election.

“Then the second time I got millions more votes than I got the first time,” Trump told Fridman. “I was told if I got 63 million, which is what I got the first time, you would win. You can't not win. And I got millions of more votes than that. Lost by a whisker.”

Um, what?

In my daily video for my YouTube channel, I broke down the comment — and what it means that Trump made it. Subscribe!

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“I think New Hampshire is going to play a big role I have a feeling.” — Donald Trump today, just days after a top volunteer for his campaign said the former president had decided to pull out of the state.

ONE GOOD CHART

People really don’t like JD Vance. Like, at all. This is new from Gallup:

SONG OF THE DAY

The War on Drugs just announced they are releasing a new LIVE album next Friday. Great news. Here’s “Burning” to tide you over until then.

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