FLASHBACK: See how Kamala Harris answered when she was confronted as ‘the most liberal senator’
Ahead of the 2020 general election, then-vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris was grilled by CBS News for being the ‘most liberal senator’ in the U.S. at the time.
Then-vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris laughed as she was grilled in 2020 by CBS News for being the “most liberal” U.S. senator at the time.
During a CBS “60 Minutes” episode on Oct. 25, 2020, CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell brought up the Democratic California senator’s liberal voting record, noting how progressive it is to the point where her and even then-presidential candidate Joe Biden clashed on some issues.
“You’re considered the most liberal United States senator,” O’Donnell told Harris.
“Somebody said that, and it was actually Mike Pence on the debate stage,” Harris said, laughing.
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Before she was elected, Vice President Kamala Harris was accused by “60 Minutes” of being the “most liberal senator” in the U.S. at the time. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
However, O’Donnell was unwilling to write off the charge as a conservative smear, pushing back, “Well, actually, the nonpartisan GovTrack has rated you as the most liberal senator.”
The anchor listed off the issues where Harris had displayed her liberal bent as compiled by U.S. Congressional database GovTrack.us. The self-described “government transparency website” scored Harris as the “most liberal compared to all senators” in 2019, outranking even Sens. Bernie Sanders, Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, Mass., at the time.
“You supported the Green New Deal, you supported Medicare for all, you’ve supported legalizing marijuana,” O’Donnell adding, noting, “Joe Biden doesn’t support those things.”
She then asked if Harris would bring those liberal policy points of hers to the White House.
Harris replied, “What I will do — and I promise you this, and this is what Joe wants me to do, this was part of our deal — I will always share with him my lived experience as it relates to any issue that we confront. And I promised Joe that I will give him that perspective and always be honest with him.”
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The anchor asked if that would be a “socialist or progressive perspective.” Harris laughed and said, “No.”
Since Harris has become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for 2024, her opponents have tried to remind voters about her liberal record. Former President Trump’s campaign recently told Fox News Digital that Harris is ” dangerously liberal.”
Vice President Kamala Harris attends an infrastructure event addressing high-speed internet in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building’s South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington, D.C., on June 3, 2021. (Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein)
While Trump’s campaign has kept Harris’ liberal record in the spotlight, the same website O’Donnell cited in her Harris interview four years ago has not.
Earlier this week, GovTrack confirmed to Fox News Digital it had removed its 2019 web page that ranked Harris as that year’s “most liberal” U.S. senator sometime within the last two weeks.
The web page with the ranking was recently deactivated, and its link now displays a “Page Not Found” message. The Internet Archive shows the page was deleted some time between July 10 and July 23.
Biden dropped out of the White House race and endorsed Harris on Sunday, and she has since quickly consolidated party support to become the presumptive 2024 nominee.
GovTrack founder Joshua Tauberer told Fox News Digital the page was removed because the company adopted a policy “several years ago” to end its single-year ratings of lawmakers and only do ratings based on congressional sessions, which are two years.
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Fox News Digital’s Yael Halon contributed to this report.
