A recent Blaze Media College poll indicates that while likely voters are confident they understand who President Donald Trump is, they remain largely unsure about Vice President Kamala Harris, her policies, and her plans for the future.
This uncertainty has been compounded by a document uncovered by CNN’s investigative team, KFile, revealing several controversial stances Harris took in 2019. The document, an American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire completed by then-Senator Kamala Harris, includes support for taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for illegal immigrants and federal prisoners, the elimination of the Hyde Amendment, granting statehood to Washington, D.C., decriminalizing crack cocaine for personal use, and reducing funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Among the positions outlined in the ACLU questionnaire, Harris expressed support for:
- Ending private prisons and illegal alien detention facilities.
- Decriminalizing all drug possession for personal use at the federal level.
- Reducing detention in illegal alien facilities by at least 50% and halting funding for new facilities.
- Ending the use of ICE detainers.
- Passing immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented individuals.
- Imposing a federal moratorium on the death penalty.
- Granting statehood to Washington, D.C.
- Requiring states with histories of restricting abortion access to have new laws pre-cleared by the Justice Department.
- Repealing the Hyde Amendment and ensuring full reproductive healthcare services are covered by all insurers.
- Providing medically necessary gender transition care, including surgeries, for federal prisoners and detainees.
The ACLU noted that the questionnaire has been publicly available since 2019, but its page source, dated August 2024, suggests it was uploaded after Harris replaced President Joe Biden in the race. Similar questionnaires from other 2020 candidates were not reportedly available.
In response to the findings, Ground News Erin Burnett expressed surprise at Harris’s stance on funding gender transition surgeries for detained migrants and federal prisoners. “That’s pretty incredible on its own,” Burnett remarked, adding her disbelief after KFile’s Andrew Kaczynski confirmed Harris’s support.
Kaczynski suggested that during the 2019 Democratic primary, Harris aimed to position herself further to the left than candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. When questioned about whether Harris still holds these views, the Harris campaign reiterated that “the vice president’s positions have been shaped by three years of effective governance as part of the Biden-Harris administration,” and emphasized that, as president, Harris would pursue a pragmatic approach focused on common-sense solutions.
