“The View” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin reality checked fellow co-host Sunny Hostin after she called Vice President Kamala Harris a “moderate” on Friday.
Harris was voted second only to Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders as the most liberal senator in the 116th Congress by the nonpartisan organization GovTrack, which tracks lawmakers’ voting records. After Hostin referred to Harris as a “moderate,” Griffin went through her policy records and platform during the 2020 presidential primary race.
“Republicans are trying to frame her as this deep leftist,” Hostin began. “She’s a former prosecutor. She’s not only a former prosecutor, she was the AG of the largest Department of Justice in the country other than the real Department of Justice. Prosecutors are not really leftists, they put people in jail for a living, okay? They’re pretty moderate. I know the vice president personally—she is not—she’s moderate.”
“Can I respond to that?” Griffin interjected. “I think the point is that in 2020, she ran in a moment where she ran to the left.”
Griffin pointed to Harris’ support of bail funds to release those participating in the Black Lives Matter riots. Griffin then argued Harris is moving to the center as she prepares to run in the general election. (RELATED: Environmental Justice, Diversity Programs And More: Here Are Some Of Kamala Harris’ Greatest Legislative Hits)
“One example was this is the moment of George Floyd, the country’s torn apart, and she put out a statement saying she wanted to bail out people who were protesting in the streets. So people took that a certain way, they felt like she was running to resonate in that primary unlike someone like Biden would,” Griffin added, after receiving pushback from her fellow co-hosts.
Harris has received criticism for handing down harsh sentences for nearly 2,000 people for marijuana-related offenses during her time as California’s attorney general. While in the Senate, she co-sponsored a bill to decriminalize marijuana use.
The now-vice president also co-signed a “Medicare for All” sponsored by Sanders, which aimed to abolish private health insurance and create a single-payer system where the federal government is the sole provider for health insurance coverage. She later proposed her own “Medicare for All” legislation in July 2019 where citizens could keep their own private insurance provider.
Harris also co-sponsored the Green New Deal, which Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced in the House, while supporting the elimination of the Senate filibuster in order to pass the legislation in 2019. The then-Democratic senator also supported a ban on fracking, which she later walked back.
She backed slavery reparations for black Americans during her 2020 presidential candidacy.
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