
CV NEWS FEED // A clip of CNN hostess Erin Burnett and reporter Andrew Kaczynski went viral Monday after the two pointed out then-Sen. Kamala Harris’ 2019 support for “taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained illegal migrants” and “federal prisoners.”
Burnett stated Kaczynski’s report “K-File” found that in 2019, Harris “said she would cut funding to ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement].”
The now-Democratic nominee wrote at the time: “I believe that we must end the unfair incarceration of thousands of individuals, families, and children.”
Harris made this statement in a 2019 candidate questionnaire for the left-wing group The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) when her now-opponent President Donald Trump was in the White House and she was a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
“Well now of course,” Burnett said, “she’s touting the Biden administration’s executive order to crack down on the border.”
The hostess was referring to an order that Biden signed in early June, less than two months before he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Harris.
CatholicVote reported at the time that “president’s critics immediately slammed the move as a ‘campaign stunt’ and a ‘desperate’ attempt to save face amid mounting criticism of his border policies ahead of the November election.”
Burnett told Kaczynski: “That’s pretty incredible on its own.”
Kaczynski replied that the ACLU questionnaire “really an interesting snapshot in time of that 2019 Democratic Primary.”
“Kamala Harris was trying to get to the left of Bernie Sanders,” he said. “She was trying to get to the left of Elizabeth Warren. And you really see that in a lot of these answers.”
Kaczynski continued, noting that on the issue of immigration, Harris in 2019 “made this open-ended pledge to end immigrant detention. She said she supported taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained migrants.”
Burnett interjected: “Taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained migrants. She actually said she supported that?”
Kaczynski clarified that Harris “both wrote and answered in the affirmative when she was asked this.”
“And she said she also supported it for federal prisoners,” he added.
>> NEW PODCAST EXPOSES HARRIS’ BORDER ROLE <<
”These are things,” Burnett said, “…would be hard to think you would come up with, taxpayer-funding gender transitions for detained migrants. And yet, this, as you say, written and verbally.”
On Monday afternoon, hours before the exchange aired, Kaczynski wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that the “Harris campaign did not answer questions from CNN on whether she continued to support these positions.”
The reporter noted that the campaign “instead provided a statement attributable only to an unnamed ‘Harris campaign advisor’ saying, ‘The Vice President’s positions have been shaped by three years of effective governance as part of the Biden-Harris Administration.’”
“They declined to elaborate on what her positions were,” Kaczynski pointed out. “They also provided a comment attributed to a Harris campaign spokesperson saying, ‘As President, she will take that same pragmatic approach, focusing on common-sense solutions for the sake of progress.’”
Kaczynski is well known for his extensive history of highlighting apparent contradictions in the statements and records of politicians from across the political spectrum.
During a Sunday appearance on the long-running NBC show “Meet the Press,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, told hostess Kristen Welker that Harris “is trying to be pragmatic and do what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”
Sanders was responding to Welker’s question as to whether Harris, whom he endorsed, is “abandoning her progressive ideals” in her apparent recent shift to the political center.
Trump campaign advisor and political commentator Steve Cortes responded to Sanders’ answer on X, writing that the openly socialist lawmaker “says the quiet part out loud.”
“Kamala Harris is the same radical Marxist she’s always been,” Cortes emphasized.
The following day’s Burnett-Kaczynski exchange is only the latest example of several mainstream media segments scrutinizing Harris’ current “moderate” positions in contrast to her previously-held “progressive” positions.
Earlier on Monday and also on CNN, hostess Brianna Keilar stated that “even some of [Harris’] own staffers aren’t sure where she stands on a range of issues.”
Keilar’s guest, Axios’ Alex Thompson, told her that the Harris campaign refused to comment on whether she stood by a 2019 bill the then-senator co-sponsored to crack down on traditional gas-powered vehicles.
>> HARRIS CAMPAIGN RELEASES FULL PLATFORM ONE DAY BEFORE DEBATE <<
