Kamala Harris calls Trump's border wall a 'medieval vanity project' that will never get her vote

Sen. Kamala Harris and CNN&#039;s Jake Tapper.

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/CNN)

published 29 January 2019

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said Monday night that under no circumstances will she ever vote for President Trump's border wall, calling it a "medieval vanity project."  

Harris was at Drake University in Iowa for a CNN town hall, one day after she officially launched her presidential campaign. She was asked about everything from taxes to health care to the criminal justice system, which she argued is "deeply flawed." Harris spent years as a prosecutor and California's attorney general, and she said her career "has been based on the understanding that, as a prosecutor, my duty was to seek and make sure that the most vulnerable and voiceless among us are protected." 

If elected president, Harris said, the first thing she would do is pass the LIFT (Livable Incomes for Families Today) the Middle Class Act, which would benefit married couples earning up to $60,000 a year, single parents making up to $80,000 a year, and single filers bringing in up to $30,000 a year. She also supports the Green New Deal, a plan to combat climate change by moving toward 100 percent renewable energy. "Climate change is an existential threat and we have got to deal with the reality of it," she said.

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Harris also said she feels "very strongly" about single payer health insurance, and wants to see Medicare for all enacted. "We have to appreciate and understand that access to health care should not be thought of to be a privilege," she said. "It should be understood to be a right." Now, insurers care more about making a profit, and that is "inhumane," Harris said, adding that she wants to see private insurers eliminate all paperwork and approval processes. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.