Kamala Harris: The 2024 60 Minutes Interview

kamla Harris has been a candidate for president for just two and a half months and the post-convention honeymoon is over with the election just 29 days away Harris and her running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walls face unrelenting attacks from Donald Trump and the race remains extremely close we met the 59-year-old vice president this past week on The Campaign Trail and later at the vice president's residence in Washington DC we spoke about the economy and immigration Ukraine and China but we began with the escalating war in the Middle East one year after the Hamas terror attack

on Israel the story will continue in a moment the events of the past few weeks have pushed us to the brink if if not into an allout Regional war in the Middle East what can the US do at this point to stop this from spinning out of control well let's start with October 7 1,200 people were massacred 250 hostages were taken including Americans women were brutally raped and as I said then I maintain Israel has a right to defend itself we would and how it does so matters far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed

this war has to end we Supply Israel with billions of dollars in military aid and yet prime minister Netanyahu seems to be charting his own course the Biden Harris Administration has pressed him to agree to a ceasefire he has resisted you urged him not to go into Lebanon he went in anyway does the US have no sway over prime minister Netanyahu the work that we do to diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing Pursuit around making clear our principles but it seems that uh prime minister Netanyahu is not listening we are not going

to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end do we have a um a real close Ally in prime minister Netanyahu I think with all due respect the better question is do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people and the answer to that question is yes and while the war in the Middle East has dominated recent headlines it's the economy that most concerns American voters this election year as always there are lots of signs

that the American economy is doing very well better than most countries I think but the American people people don't seem to be feeling it groceries are 25% higher and people are blaming you and Joe Biden for that are they wrong we now have historic low unemployment in America among all groups of people we now have an economy that is thriving by all macroeconomic measures and to your point prices are still too high and I know that and we need to deal with it which is why part of my plan you mentioned groceries part of my

plan is what we must do to bring down the price of groceries I'm taking Harris says she'll press Congress to pass a federal ban on price gouging for food and groceries but details are yet to be defined you want to expand uh the child tax credit yes I do you want to give tax breaks to firsttime home buyers yes and people starting small businesses correct but it is estimated by the nonpartisan committee for responsible federal budget that your economic plan would add $3 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade how are you going

to pay for that okay so the other econ economists that have reviewed my plan versus my opponent and determined that my economic plan would strengthen America's economy his would weaken it my plan Bill if you don't mind my plan is about saying that when you invest invest in small businesses you invest in the middle class and you strengthen America's economy small businesses are part of the backbone of America's economy but but pardon me Madam vice president the the question was how are you going to pay for it well one of the things is I'm going

to make sure that the richest Among Us who can afford it pay their fair share and taxes it is not right that teachers and nurses and firefighters are paying a higher tax rate than billionaires and the biggest corporations and I plan on making that fair but we're dealing with the real world here but the real world includes how are you going to get this through Congress you know when you talk quietly with a lot of folks in Congress they know exactly what I'm talking about because their constituents know exactly what I'm talking about their constituents

are those firefighters and teachers and nurses their constituents are middle class hardworking folks and has shown no inclination to move in your direction I I disagree with you there are plenty of leaders in Congress who understand and know that the Trump tax cuts blew up our federal deficit none of us and certainly I cannot afford to be myopic in terms of how I think about strengthening America's economy let me tell you something I am a devout public servant you know that I am also a capitalist and I know the limitations of government kamla Harris has

been in government for decades she was first elected San Francisco district attorney in 2003 then California attorney general she went on to the US Senate and now Vice President a quarter of registered voters still say they don't know you they don't know what makes you tick and and why do you think that is what's the disconnect it's an election bill and I take um it seriously that I have to earn everyone's vote this is an election for President of the United States no one should be able to take for granted that they can just declare

themselves a candidate and automatically receive support you have to earn it and that's what I intend to do let me tell you what your critics and the colonist say okay they say that the reason so many voters don't know you is that you have changed your position on so many things you were against fracking now you're for it you supported looser immigration policies now you're tightening them up you were for Medicare for all now you're not so many that people don't truly know what you believe or what you stand for and I know you've heard

that in the last four years I have been vice president of United States and I have been traveling our country and I have been listening to folks and seeking what is possible in terms of Common Ground I believe in building consensus we are a diverse people geographically regionally in terms of where we are and our backgrounds and what the American people do want is that we have leaders who can build consensus where we can figure out compromise and understand it's not a bad thing as long as you don't compromise your values to find Common Sense

Solutions and that has been my Approach but one issue that has proven impervious to compromise is immigration over the past four years the Biden Harris approach has been inconsistent and Republicans are convinced immigration is the vice president Achilles heel you recently visited the southern border and embraced President Biden's recent Crackdown on Asylum Seekers and that crack down produced an almost immediate and dramatic decrease in the number of border crossings if that's the right answer now why didn't your Administration take those steps in 2021 the first bill we proposed to Congress was to fix our broken

immigration system knowing that if you want to actually fix it we need Congress to act it was not taken up fast forward to a moment when a bipartisan group of members of the United States Senate including one of the most conservative members of the United States Senate got together came up with a border security Bill well guess what happened Donald Trump got word that this bill was a foot and could be passed and he wants to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem so he told his buddies in Congress kill the bill don't

let it move forward but I've been covering the border for for years and so I know this is not a problem that started with your Administration correct but there was an historic flood of undocumented immigrants coming across the border the first three years of your Administration as a matter of fact arrivals quadrupled from the last year of President Trump was it a mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did it's a longstanding problem and solutions are at hand and from day one literally we have been offering Solutions what I was asking was

was it a mistake to kind of allow that flood to happen in the first place I think the policies that we have been proposing are about fixing a problem not promoting a problem okay but numbers did quadruple and the numbers today because of what we have done we have cut cut the flow of illegal immigration by half have cut the flow of fentol by half but we need Congress to be able to act to actually fix the problem you have accused Donald Trump of using racist tropes when it comes to Haitian immigrants in Springfield Ohio

when it comes to birtherism when it comes to Charlottesville in fact you have called him a racist and divisive yet Donald Trump has the support of millions and millions of Americans how do you explain that I glad you are pointing these comments out that he has made that have resulted in a response by most reasonable people to say it's just wrong it's just wrong with so many people supporting Donald Trump the man youve called a racist how do you bridge that seemingly unbridgeable Gap I believe that the people of America want a leader who's not

trying to divide us and demean I believe that the American people recognize that the true measure of the strength of a leader is not based on who you beat down it's based on who you lift up the Harris campaign has been hopscotching the country and with less than a month to go the pace is picking up the vice president told told us she has lost track of how many states she's visited how are you doing I'm doing well we joined her on the trail late last week in The crucial swing state of Wisconsin in the

town of rippen the birthplace in 1854 of the Republican party and at a rally plastered with country overp party banners Harris appeared with staunch conservative Liz Cheney as Vice chair of the house January 6 committee Cheney became one of Donald Trump's fiercest critics I have never voted for a Democrat but this year I am proudly casting my vote for vice president kamla Harris that Proclamation spurred a chant of approval from the crowd four years ago if someone had told you that you would be campaigning with Liz Cheney what would you have said to them that'd

be great it's really diplomatic would you ever have thought that you'd be campaigning with KLA Harris I hope that if you had said to me four years ago our constitution is going to be under threat and it's going to be crucial for the parties to come together uh and to support vice president Harris because she'll defend the rule of law uh I know I would have said that's exactly what I'll do I thank you all whoever wins the presidency will take on a host of daunting challenges especially Beyond our borders back in Washington vice president

Harris told us she's determined the US must win the economic competition with China for the 21st century and as for the war between Russia and Ukraine what does success look like in ending the war in Ukraine there will be no success in ending that war without Ukraine and the UN Charter participating in what that success looks like would you meet with President Vladimir Putin to negotiate solution to the war in Ukraine not bilaterally without Ukraine no Ukraine must have a say in the future of Ukraine as president would you support the effort to expand NATO

to include Ukraine those are all issues that we will deal with if and when it arrives at that point right now we are supporting Ukraine's ability to defend itself against Russia's unprovoked aggression Donald Trump if he were President Putin would be sitting in ke right now he talks about oh he can end it on day one you know what that is it's about surrender a hard left turn here but um you recently surprised people when you said that you are a gun owner and then if someone came into your house that was not the first

time i' talked about it that's not the first time I've talked about it so what kind of gun do you own and when and why did you get it I have a Glock and um I've had it for quite some time and um I mean look Bill my background is in law enforcement and um so there you go have you uh ever fired it yes of course I have at a shooting range yes of course I have when we come back vice presidential candidate Tim Walls gets the 60 Minutes treatment and kamla Harris talks about

why Donald Trump decided not to democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walls was little known outside Minnesota just two months ago he didn't exactly come from nowhere he was a six-term congressman and now is governor of Minnesota where he has championed abortion rights gun control and other Progressive ideas but it was calling former president Trump and Senator JD Vance weird that may have landed him on the ticket the story will continue in a moment two months ago you and KLA Harris barely knew each other now you're running together vying for the top offices in the land

it's not possible that you agree on everything yeah what have been some disagreements you've had since you became a team well I she probably disagreed with you said Tim you know you need to be a little more careful on how you say things whatever it might be it just whatever it might be wall has been criticized for embellishing or telling outright falsehoods about his military record and about his travels to Asia in the 1980s in your debate with JD Vance you said I'm a knucklehead at times and I think you were referring to the time

that you said that you were in Hong Kong during the Tenn and Men Square unrest when you were or not yeah is that kind of misrepresentation isn't that more than just being a knucklehead I think folks know who I am and I think they know the difference between someone expressing emotion telling a story getting a date wrong uh by a you rather than a pathological liar like Donald Trump but I think it comes down to the question of whether whether you can be trusted to tell the truth yeah well I can I think I can

I will own up to being a knucklehead at times but the folks closest to me know that I keep my word walls proudly touts his record as governor of Minnesota but it also has opened him up to criticism from his Republican opponents former president Trump says that you and your Administration here in Minnesota has been dangerously liberal radical left he calls it so what do you say to that criticism that rather than leading the way you and Minnesota are actually out of step with the rest of the country president Trump may be referring to that

um that our children uh get breakfast and lunch in school so that they can learn he may be talking about we have a paid family medical leave policy that was promoted by the business Community Donald Trump spends his time tearing down States rather than lifting up the things we do the best of it Donald Trump's critiques of that not only are they wrong but I'm waiting for what what is his solution here in Minnesota we're so optimistic we walk on water half the year it was that kind of humor and cander that helped land Tim

Walls the job as kamla Harris's running mate before you join the ticket you called Republicans weird and that's sort of become a rallying cry for Democrats why do you think that label stuck I was really talking about the behaviors being obsessed with people's personal lives in their bedrooms and their Reproductive Rights making up stories about legal folks legally here eating cats and dogs they're dehumanizing they go beyond weird because I said this it becomes almost dangerous let's debate policy in a real way and let's try and find an objective truth again God Bless America kamla

Harris and Tim Walls are in a full Sprint to November 5th hoping their arguments will give them a chance to cross the line ahead of Donald Trump and JD Advance you are sitting here with us the Trump campaign cancelled an interview that they had agreed to to participate in this broadcast what do you make of that if he is not going to give your viewers the ability to have a meaningful thoughtful conversation question and answer with you then watch his rallies you're going to hear conversations that are about himself and all of his personal Grievances

and what you will not hear is anything about you the listener you will not hear about how he's going to try to bring the country together find common ground and Bill that is why I believe in my soul and heart the American people are ready to turn the page I think the St more from the Democratic ticket plus one year covering rapidly escalating conflict in the Middle East civilians caught in the middle as always are the ones suffering the most at 60 minutes overtime.com