60 Minutes host grills Kamala Harris on the 'mistake' of allowing in a 'flood' of migrants and why she has 'changed her position' on so many things

Vice President Kamala Harris was enactment successful the blistery spot connected CBS' 60 Minutes wherever she was forced to support the Biden medication connected its dilatory effect to the migration situation arsenic Republicans person attacked her implicit the confederate borderline since she took implicit the apical of the Democratic statesmanlike ticket.

In her beryllium down interrogation with analogous Bill Whitaker aired Monday, their speech got heated arsenic the longtime writer pressed her implicit wherefore the medication did not determination sooner.

‘You precocious visited the confederate borderline and embraced President Biden's caller crackdown connected asylum seekers, and that crackdown produced an astir contiguous and melodramatic alteration successful the fig of borderline crossings,' Whitaker said. 

'If that's the close reply now, wherefore didn't your medication instrumentality those steps successful 2021?’

Whitaker was referring to the vice president's halt astatine the confederate border conscionable past period successful Arizona.

‘The archetypal measure we projected to Congress was to hole our breached migration system, knowing that if you privation to really hole it, we request Congress to act,' Harris responded flatly. 'It was not taken up.'

She pointed to the bipartisan borderline woody reached successful the Senate before slamming her rival Donald Trump for moving to termination the bill. It is simply a talking constituent she often brings up connected the run trail. But Whitaker did not spell for it.

Whitaker pointed retired ‘there was an historical flood of undocumented immigrants coming crossed the borderline the archetypal 3 years of your administration. As a substance of fact, arrivals quadrupled from the past twelvemonth of President Trump. Was it a mistake to loosen the migration policies arsenic overmuch arsenic you did?’

‘It's a longstanding problem,' Harris pushed back. 'And solutions are astatine hand. And from time one, literally, we person been offering solutions.'

Again Whitaker pressed the vice president.

‘What I was asking was, was it a mistake to benignant of let that flood to hap successful the archetypal place?’ helium interrupted.

‘I think-- the policies that we person been proposing are astir fixing a problem, not promoting a problem, okay?’ Harris started.

Again Whitaker chopped her off: ‘But the numbers did quadruple nether your –’

The 2 spoke implicit each different arsenic Whitaker tried to inquire her if she should person acted sooner.

‘But we request Congress to beryllium capable to enactment to really hole the problem,’ Harris yet finished earlier they moved connected to different topics. She ne'er straight responded to the question.

In June, President Biden took enforcement enactment to bounds the fig of migrants who could assertion asylum betwixt ports of introduction aft deliberating for months implicit however to enactment connected immigration. 

It came arsenic amerciable borderline crossings were already ticking down owed successful portion to stepped up efforts by Mexico earlier this year. But the determination came arsenic the president was facing fierce disapproval implicit the contented by Republicans who enactment it beforehand and halfway connected the run trail.

Online, conservatives were speedy to prehend connected Harris' grilling implicit migration arsenic they person attempted to overgarment her arsenic the administration's 'border czar.' One posted calling her effect ‘nonsense.'

But the pugnacious questioning by 60 Minutes did not halt there.

In different tense exchange, Whitaker told the vice president the crushed immoderate critics and columnist accidental voters don't cognize her is due to the fact that of her changing positions. 

'You were against fracking, present you're for it. You supported looser migration policies, present you're tightening them up. You were for Medicare for All, present you're not,' Whitaker rattled off. 'So galore that radical don't genuinely cognize what you judge oregon what you basal for.'

'In the past 4 years I person been vice president of the United States, and I person been traveling our country, and I person been listening to folks and seeking what is imaginable successful presumption of communal ground,' Harris stated.

 It is not the archetypal clip she has been pressed connected her flip-flops since moving successful the 2020 Democratic statesmanlike primary. Her changing stances person travel up connected the statement signifier and successful her archetypal interrogation arsenic the Democratic statesmanlike nominee with CNN.

 'I judge successful gathering consensus,' Harris told Whitaker.

'We are a divers people: geographically, regionally, successful presumption of wherever we are successful our backgrounds,' she continued. 'And what the American radical bash privation is that we person leaders who tin physique consensus.'

She claimed her 'approach' has been to 'figure retired compromise and recognize it's not a atrocious thing, arsenic agelong arsenic you don't compromise your values, to find common-sense solutions.'