US Senator John Cornyn accuses Democrat Kamala Harris of flip-flops in presidential race
ROUND ROCK — Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn took aim at Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, saying the vice president's new TV ad stressing the importance of border security makes her sound like "Donald Trump reincarnate."
The Texan, speaking at a Round Rock Chamber of Commerce luncheon and then with reporters Wednesday, said the "honeymoon" period Harris has enjoyed since President Joe Biden ended his candidacy in July and she wrapped up the Democratic nomination at her party's national convention in Chicago last week will likely come to an end once Republicans start hammering her record as the No. 2 official in the White House since January 2021.
"Kamala Harris can run but can't hide," Cornyn said during a 15-minute question-and-answer session with reporters. "I don't know how you can be part of an administration for the last 31⁄2 years, or four years, and claim not to be associated with the policies of that administration."
Cornyn was referencing the Harris campaign's effort to blunt one of the perceived Democratic administration's weaknesses – presiding over the record pace of unauthorized migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border, which have only recently begun to slow down – by highlighting Trump's efforts earlier in this year to pressure Republicans in Congress to derail a bipartisan bill that would have boosted funding for border agents and other enforcement efforts to keep Biden from gaining a big policy win during an election year.
A recent ad by Harri s' campaign , which touts her prosecution of transnational drug gangs as California's attorney general, shows a brief image of the border wall that became the symbol of Trump's get-tough approach to immigration during his four years in the White House. That ad, coupled with others and speeches Harris has given, lays the blame for the inability to enact comprehensive immigration reform at the Republican presidential nominee's feet.
"Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign, so he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal," Harris said in her presidential nomination acceptance speech last week. "Well, I refuse to play politics with our security. And here is my pledge to you: As president, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed, and I will sign it into law."
Cornyn – who is not up for reelection this year but is mounting an energetic behind-the-scenes campaign among Republican senators to lead them after Senate Minority Mitch McConnell of Kentucky retires from that top post at year's end – said it is up to Trump and his GOP allies to hammer Harris on what the senior senator from Texas called her "magnificent flip-flop from her earlier positions" since her failed 2020 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Back then, Harris called the border wall, which the Biden campaign declined to continue, "a medieval vanity project." She also expressed opposition to fracking to extract oil and gas, but she has since dropped that stance. She also has indicated she no longer supports what has become known as "Medicare for All," which would be a government-run health insurance plan similar to that which Americans 65 and older have been entitled to since the Lyndon B. Johnson administration.
"What we see right now cannot be sustained," Cornyn said of Harris' policy shifts, adding voters will be "better informed" once the fall campaign kicks into high gear as it barrels toward the Nov. 5 election.
