Harris hypocrisy? VP digs in on both sides of issues as she tries to revise past liberal rhetoric

Since Vice President Kamala Harris emerged as the Democratic standard bearer late last month, her campaign has been roiled by evolving policy positions, some of which have seemingly placed her on both sides of key issues ranging from immigration to the taxation of workers' tips.

Prior to becoming President Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020, she ran for the party nomination herself on a largely left-wing platform, advocating for positions that prompted observers to call her "the most liberal member of the Senate," standing in demonstrable contrast to her current approach. Some changes in her platform and messaging have addressed keynote issues of her political rivals, namely immigration and border security.

Former President Donald Trump, for his part, remarked that the platform changes amounted to Harris casting herself as a comparable candidate to him.

“Our country is becoming a very dangerous place, and she is a radical left San Francisco liberal, and now she's trying to … she wants to be more Trump than Trump, if that's possible,” he said in a recent X space with platform owner Elon Musk. “I don't think it's possible, but she wants to be more Trump than Trump.”

Fueling that quip, in particular, has been her chameleonic posture on border issues, as well as her embrace of one of Trump’s keynote campaign pledges not to tax tips. But the Harris campaign faces a broader issue with policy flip-flops that go beyond mere "recalibration" for a wider audience and seemingly incompatible representations of the candidate and her running mate as individuals.

Harris has yet to have had an unscripted press conference about her positions or given an interview.

“[I]t's quite a transformation when you think about all of the different positions that she's flip-flopping on right now, whether it is a mandatory gun confiscation program, whether it's Medicare for all, whether it's now she does want to be the border czar, and has some ideas on how to stop the invasion that she has unleashed,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said on the “Just the News, No Noise” television program.

“I think the key question you've got to ask: ‘is she now saying that the Harris Biden administration has been wrong on all of these key issues over the last four years, or is she saying that there's an election coming up and we need to go pander to the voters?’” he went on.

The “border czar” 

Biden tapped Harris to serve as border czar in early 2021, though her office highlighted that she was focused on dealing with the root causes of migration and cooperation with Latin American countries on the issue. While media outlets referred to her as the “border czar” at the time, her ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket led to widespread efforts from the media to memory-hole the appointment, claim there was no such "title" and downplay her connection to ongoing situation at the southern border. That crisis has proved a weak point for the administration and a potentially viable avenue of attack for her Republican opponents.

Speaking on the “Just the News, No Noise” television show, Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, suggested that Democrats were “redesigning a whole new product ahead of this election” by trying to revise Harris’s record.

“And they brought in Kamala Harris, and they're like, ‘Well, what can we do? Well, first we have to delete the past. We have to delete references to the fact that she had the most far left voting record of any senator, including left of Bernie Sanders, who describes himself as a socialist or a Democratic socialist, and they had to delete things like she was the border czar, because they know the border has been a disaster,’” he said.

After denying the title of “border czar,” however, Harris has now promised to crack down on the border and to address both transnational drug cartels and traffickers, often highlighting her past record as a prosecutor.

“We know our immigration system is broken and we know what it takes to fix it: comprehensive reform. That includes strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship,” she said a rally in Glendale, Ariz., Politico reported. “I was attorney general of a border state. I went after the transnational gangs, the drug cartels and the human traffickers… I prosecuted them in case after case and I won, so I know what I’m talking about.” She further vowed to hire additional border agents and pursue a comprehensive crackdown on drug and human trafficking at the southern border in a recent campaign ad. 

The tough rhetoric does not have her detractors convinced, however, and Trump himself has suggested her posturing on the issue does not reflect her actual stance.

“She wants to have open borders, and now she's going like, she's tough on the border. It's such a lie. Yeah, this is simply not true,” he told Musk.

During the 2019 Democratic primary, Harris also endorsed decriminalizing border crossings. Later on, however, she expressed support for some of President Joe Biden’s recent executive orders restricting asylum claims with the aim of reducing such crossings.

“No tax on tips”

Trump announced his "no tax on tips" plan during a campaign rally in Las Vegas in June. The move appeared to resonate with service industry workers and Harris ultimately endorsed the same idea in August.

“It is my promise to everyone here that, when I am president, we will continue our fight for working families of America, including to raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers,”” Harris said at a rally at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

“How long will it be before Kamala Harris comes out with another TRUMP policy [?]” Trump responded. “Everyone is waiting to see what idea, or policy of mine, she will copy next.”

Harris’s adoption of the policy signals more than mere imitation. Rather, it stands in direct contrast to the Biden administration’s ongoing efforts to boost compliance with tip reporting for taxation purposes. Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which explicitly taxed workers' tips.

The Department of the Treasury in 2023 introduced the Service Industry Tip Compliance Agreement (SITCA) program in order to "take advantage of advancements in point-of-sale, time and attendance systems, and electronic payment settlement methods to improve tip reporting compliance."

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday indicated that Biden “supports eliminating taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers” and would sign legislation to that effect, according to the Daily Mail.

I.D. requirements to enter rallies, but not voting

Harris drew considerable accusations of hypocrisy in recent days over reports that her campaign had required attendees at a Friday rally in Arizona to RSVP and present a government-issued I.D. in order to attend.

Yet Harris has vehemently opposed what she called "suppressive voter ID laws, racial gerrymandering, voter roll purges, precinct closures and reduced early-voting days” when attacking election integrity measures in battleground states such as Georgia. She has further said that such practices are “laser-targeted toward communities of color.”

Even more confusing, in 2019, moreover, she advocated for the use of paper ballots as a means of securing elections in light of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential contest, quipping that “Russia can’t hack a piece of paper.”

Walz’s false military record: "He misspoke"

Harris’s choice of Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., as her running mate earlier this month opened the campaign up to additional scrutiny, this time over his fabricated military record.

Walz served in the Minnesota National Guard and has often touted his military career as part of his political persona. He came under metaphorical fire, however, over his representations of himself as having served in a war, "carrying a weapon of war" and misrepresenting his rank on discharge, prompting the campaign to issue a clarification claiming he “misspoke.”

“We can make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at,” Walz said in a 2018 clip.

"In making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke,” the campaign said in a statement. “He did handle weapons of war and believes strongly that only military members trained to carry those deadly weapons should have access to them.”

But such was not the only issue surrounding Walz’s record. The governor has, for years, claimed he retired as a command sergeant major, though he only held the rank temporarily and was demoted.

Walz "retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy," Minnesota National Guard State Public Affairs Officer Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé confirmed to Just the News earlier this month.

The campaign subsequently amended his biography to reflect that he did not retire as a command sergeant major, but still emphasized his work with veterans, Politico reported.

“The son of an Army veteran who served as a command sergeant major, Walz was the ranking member on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, where he passed legislation to help stem veterans’ suicides,” Walz’s campaign biography reads.

In 2018, he attracted scrutiny after retired members of the Minnesota National Guard criticized Walz for retiring when he learned his battalion was scheduled for deployment to Iraq.

Just the News sought comment from the Harris campaign which was not responded to.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X.