‘You’re not answering the question directly…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Sen. Kamala Harris was touted as one of the big winners of Thursday night’s Democratic primary debates thanks to a carefully orchestrated race-baiting attack on former Vice President Joe Biden, the current front-runner.
But, once again, Harris proved that she is far weaker when put on the spot, often struggling to explain where she stands on even the most basic of positions in the current Democratic platform.
Harris in the past has waffled on issues such as whether she supported the debunked Jussie Smollet case and whether she would allow incarcerated felons to vote.
She put her flip–flopping skills on display again during the debate over a controversial call for extending universal healthcare that would forcibly end private insurance plans and socialize the entire medical industry.
After raising her hands in support, Harris promptly walked back her position the next morning, noted the conservative America Rising PAC.
“Less than 12 hours later, she said on ‘Morning Joe’ that she is not in support of eliminating private insurance and had a different interpretation of the question than the 9 other Democrats on stage, the moderators, and the millions of Americans watching,” they said in a release on Friday.
Harris clarified on the MSNBC show, “The question was, ‘Would you give up your private insurance for that option,’ and I said yes.”
However, America Rising noted that it wasn’t her first time walking back a statement that she would eliminate private insurance and switch to a single-payer system.
She did the same thing in January during a CNN town-hall forum, it noted.
Despite being a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All bill introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., within 24 hours after pronouncing her support Harris reversed course when other Democrats in the field rejected the position.
America Rising compiled its own four-minute montage of the many times Harris had second-guessed herself on her own private insurance stance.
Harris has also been the recipient of several “Pinocchio” ratings by Washington Post fact-checkers, particularly over a policy she endorsed as a San Francisco district attorney that resulted in the incarceration of parents due to their children’s school truancy.
Other issues that have been called out by fact-checkers include a false statement about President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and a deceptive video about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his nomination hearing.
Harris’s confusion problem has even come into play during high-profile testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
She notably attacked Attorney General William Barr at a hearing over the Mueller Report, demanding to know whether then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein—who oversaw the bulk of the investigation—had been cleared to do so, given what Harris claimed was a conflict of interests.
Rosenstein was approved directly by the Senate in a 96–4 vote following the recusal of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“I think they cleared it when he took over the investigation,” Barr said, noting what appeared to be a flip–flop by Democrats who had strongly favored Rosenstein in the past.
“Sir, the flip–flop in this case, I think, is that you’re not answering the question directly,” Harris said, cutting off the attorney general.