Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Sunday criticized former President Trump’s “backtracking” on the abortion issue after the Republican presidential nominee attacked his opponent, Vice President Harris, for changing his position on fracking.
“Let’s compare that to Donald Trump, who changed his position on abortion four times in the past 48 hours,” Schiff said of Harris on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“To me, that’s a much more serious issue, particularly when we’re talking about abortion and the rights and freedoms of the American people, to ignore, dither, backtrack, and show disrespect for the rights and freedoms of millions of American women,” Schiff continued.
“There’s a contrast here, and more importantly, Dana, it’s a values issue,” he added, referring to anchor Dana Bassey. “It’s a values issue. If he flips every 15 minutes on something like abortion rights, it essentially shows that he has no values.”
President Trump has come under fire recently after reportedly changing his position on a Florida abortion ballot measure that would have guaranteed the right to an abortion “before viability” at 24 weeks.
President Trump signaled his opposition to the measure in an interview with NBC News on Thursday, saying he would vote to require “six more weeks.”
But his campaign appeared to walk back those comments, saying Trump had not actually said how he would vote on the measure but “simply reiterated that he thinks six weeks is too short.”
But a day later, President Trump appeared on Fox News and said he would vote for the measure only after receiving backlash from conservatives over his earlier interview.
But Harris’s policy shifts have also made headlines recently, especially after CNN’s Dana Bash questioned her shifting stance on the fracking ban during her first roundtable discussion for the campaign on Thursday.
Schiff, who is running for the California Senate seat, defended the former California senator, who has come under fire for her shifting stance on the fracking ban, saying Harris’s values have remained consistent, which is consistent with what she described in an interview Thursday night.
Asked if he was disappointed that Harris opposed the fracking ban, Schiff said, “I support a fracking ban, and I firmly believe that the path to combating climate change is to move away from fossil fuels.”
“But look, I’m not the vice president of the United States, and I think when you’re representing a country, you have a different perspective,” he continued. “As the vice president pointed out, her values have remained consistent.”
Harris has pledged not to ban fracking if elected president, but said in an interview Thursday that her “values have not changed.” She pointed to her role in passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which she said contributed to a boom in renewable energy jobs.
“My experience as vice president has shown us that we can do it without banning fracking,” Harris said in an interview. “What I’ve seen is that we can grow a growing and prosperous clean energy economy without banning fracking.”
Trump’s spokesman Stephen Chung disputed Schiff’s comments in the interview, attacking his character and using a nickname coined by the former president.
“Shifty Schiff has no right to talk about morality, given that he is one of the most despicable and disgusting elected officials in Congress,” Cheung said in a statement, without evidence. “He knows that Comrade Kamala is a flip-flopper, someone who has actually lied about her positions on everything from fracking to the border to the Afghanistan catastrophe.”
“This is just disgusting gaslighting from a disgusting person who has no decency or character to be president,” he continued. “It’s shameful!”
Trump has for years criticized Schiff, who served as the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial and was a member of the special committee that presided over the Jan. 6 hearing.
