McConnell said he was staying out of the presidential race. Then he attacked Harris
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On Tuesday afternoon Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, evaded a question on Donald Trump on the premise he wasn’t getting involved in the 2024 White House race.
Then on Wednesday morning, he unleashed a sweeping attack on Trump’s Democratic opponent.
As McConnell hammered Vice President Kamala Harris for a series of policy “flip-flops,” he appeared to be committing a notable political reversal in the span of less than 24 hours.
“The problem is not that the vice president doesn’t have a record,” McConnell said from the Senate floor Wednesday. “Instead, the problem is that on issue after issue, Vice President Harris has, at one time or another, played both sides.”
While McConnell has insisted for most of the year his political focus would be on the battle for the U.S. Senate — “It’s the only thing he cares about,” an aide acknowledged in March — and not Trump’s reelection, he also understands that Harris’ performance in a handful of states could have down-ballot effects.
McConnell believes Republicans can win back the Senate even if Trump loses to Harris, but the top-of-the-ticket margin of victory in states like Montana, Ohio and Maryland will be crucial.
So while he often uses Senate races as an escape hatch to avoid thorny questions about Trump, he has poked Harris when opportunities have arisen.
The most recent example came on Tuesday, when he was asked to field a question on whether Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, should stop fueling the unfounded rumors about Haitian migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
“I’m not going to get into the presidential race,” he told reporters.
But he’s now asking Harris to provide more answers on her record.
Harris’ flip-flops
He noted her previous position as a candidate in 2019 favoring the banning of fracking, a technique used to extract oil, natural gas and other resources from rock formations under the ground.
Harris now says she will not ban fracking.
McConnell also cited Harris’ sponsoring of the Zero Emission Vehicles Act, a bill that aims to require all cars be free of greenhouses gases by 2035.
“These days, her campaign avoids getting pinned down about whether she would seek an electric vehicle mandate,” McConnell said.
A Harris campaign spokesman, Ammar Moussa, wrote in August that “Vice President Harris does not support an electric vehicle mandate.”
“Then-Senator Harris also went on the record in support of the Green New Deal, including its make-work programs and job guarantees,” McConnell pointed out.
Harris now instead has touted that the Biden administration has overseen the “largest increase in domestic oil production in history,” another sign of her move to the middle to become more palatable to voters skeptical of her more liberal roots.
McConnell even raised Harris’ past support for a federal ban on plastic straws. But an anonymous campaign staffer told Axios earlier this month she no longer holds that view.
“Well, micromanaging fountain drinks is one thing. But as millions of Americans contend with the business end of the Biden-Harris climate and economic agenda, they ought to know precisely where the Democratic Party’s nominee stands,” McConnell asserted. “Voters are fed up with flip-flops. And the vice president ought to come clean.”
The Harris campaign did not respond to a Herald-Leader inquiry on McConnell’s comments.
