Then-vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris laughed when CBS News questioned her in 2020 about being the “most liberal” US senator at the time.
During an episode of CBS's “60 Minutes” on Oct. 25, 2020, CBS News anchor Norah O'Donnell brought up the Democratic senator from California's liberal voting record, noting how progressive she is to the point where she and even then-presidential candidate Joe Biden clashed on some issues.
“He's considered the most liberal senator in America,” O'Donnell told Harris.
“Someone said that and it was actually Mike Pence who was on the debate stage,” Harris said, laughing.
TRUMP SAYS HE WOULD BE WILLING TO HAVE MORE THAN ONE DEBATE WITH VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS
Before being elected, Vice President Kamala Harris was accused by “60 Minutes” of being the “most liberal senator” in the United States at the time. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
O'Donnell, however, was unwilling to dismiss the accusation as a conservative smear, responding: “Well, actually, the nonpartisan group GovTrack has rated him as the most liberal senator.”
The host listed the issues on which Harris had shown her liberal leaning, according to data compiled by the U.S. Congressional database GovTrack.us. The self-described “government transparency website” rated Harris as the “most liberal compared to all senators” in 2019, even beating out Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts at the time.
“You supported the Green New Deal, you supported Medicare for All, you supported legalizing marijuana,” O'Donnell added, noting, “Joe Biden doesn't support those things.”
He then asked if Harris would bring those liberal political views to the White House.
Harris responded: “What I will do, and I promise you, and this is what Joe wants me to do, this was part of our deal, is to always share with him my life experience in relation to any issue that we face. And I promised Joe that I would give him that perspective and that I would always be honest with him.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE MEDIA AND CULTURE COVERAGE
The host asked her if that would be a “socialist or progressive perspective.” Harris laughed and said, “No.”
Since Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee for 2024, her opponents have sought to remind voters of her liberal record. Former President Trump's campaign recently told Fox News Digital that Harris is “dangerously liberal.”
TRUMP SAYS BIDEN IS 'UNFIT TO SERVE': 'WHO WILL RULE THE COUNTRY FOR THE NEXT 5 MONTHS?'
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris attends an infrastructure event addressing high-speed internet in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House in Washington, U.S., June 3, 2021. (Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein)
While the Trump campaign has kept Harris' liberal record in the spotlight, the same website O'Donnell cited in her interview with Harris four years ago has not.
Earlier this week, GovTrack confirmed to Fox News Digital that it had removed its 2019 webpage ranking Kamala Harris as that year's “most liberal” U.S. senator sometime in the past two weeks.
The webpage with the rating was recently disabled and its link now displays a “Page not found” message. The Internet Archive shows that the page was removed sometime between July 10 and July 23.
Biden dropped out of the White House race and endorsed Harris on July 21, and she has since quickly consolidated the party's support to become the presumptive 2024 nominee.
GovTrack founder Joshua Tauberer told Fox News Digital that the page was removed because the company adopted a policy “several years ago” to end its single-year ratings of lawmakers and only do ratings based on congressional sessions, which are two years long.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Fox News Digital's Yael Halon contributed to this report.
