Vice President Kamala Harris “needs” to support fracking as a weapon against Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to CNN political commentator Van Jones.
Harris has recently faced heavy criticism from Republicans including former President Donald Trump, her Republican presidential election opponent, for changing her position on fracking in the years since she ran as a candidate in the 2020 presidential election.
The Democratic presidential nominee called for a fracking ban as recently as late 2019 but says that she is now in favor of allowing the practice, which involves fracturing shale rock to help extract natural gas. Harris recently told CNN’s Dana Bash that she had come to believe that “clean energy” was achievable without a ban on fracking.
Jones, ex-adviser to former President Barack Obama, said during a CNN broadcast on Thursday night that it was “ludicrous” for Republicans to continue questioning the vice president’s stance on fracking without subjecting Trump and running mate JD Vance to the same scrutiny for “flip-flopping” on other issues like abortion rights.
Vice President Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz are pictured during a campaign stop in Rochester, Pennsylvania, on August 18. Van Jones, former Obama adviser, said on Thursday that Harris will continue to support…
ANGELA WEISS/AFP
“[Republicans] get all upset about her changing her mind when Donald Trump has flip-flopped, even in the past couple weeks, on abortion,” Jones said. “JD Vance used to call Trump a ‘Hitler’ … So, here’s what happens in politics: People do change.”
The former Obama adviser went on to say that the support of fracking was a critical stance for Harris, and one that she would not reverse, because it allows the U.S. government to counteract Putin’s threats of cutting off European natural-gas supplies amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“Kamala Harris needs fracking,” Jones said. The idea that she spent four years doing nothing to stop fracking [and] she would stop it now is literally ludicrous. Why does she need it? Fracking is giving us a geopolitical weapon against Putin.”
Jones explained that the U.S. had been able to “hold the European coalition together” during the Russia-Ukraine war due to fracking, pointing out that Putin threatened to “cut gas off to Europe” if European nations backed Ukraine.
“We said, ‘No you’re not,'” Jones added. “You know why? We are now the biggest exporter of natural gas in the world. We sent liquid natural gas to Ukraine. And where did it come from? It came from fracking in Pennsylvania. So, Pennsylvania fracking is key to our geopolitical strategy.”
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said the following in a statement to Newsweek: “Van Jones has no idea what he’s talking about and he should stop playing politics because his track record is terrible. To think that Kamala is playing some 4D foreign policy chess is ridiculous.”
“When she met with Putin,