SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris defended her shift from some of her more liberal positions in her first major television interview of her presidential campaign on Thursday, but insisted her “values ​​have not changed” even as she “seeks consensus.”

Sitting with her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim WalzHarris was asked specifically about her moves to roll back the fracking ban and decriminalize illegal border crossings, positions she took during her last presidential race. She confirmed that she would not ban fracking, an energy extraction process critical to the economy of swing state Pennsylvania, and said there should be “consequences” for people who cross the border without permission.

“I think the most important and significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is that my values ​​have not changed,” Harris said.

She continued: “I believe it’s important to build consensus. It’s important to find a common ground of understanding where we can actually solve the problem.”

The interview with CNN’s Dana Bash came at a time when voters are still trying to learn more about the Democratic ticket in an unusually short time frame. President Joe Biden has ended his re-election campaign just five weeks ago. The interview focused largely on policy, as Harris attempted to demonstrate that she has taken more moderate positions on issues Republicans find extreme, while Walz defended past misstatements about his biography.

Harris hadn’t given a full-length interview since becoming her party’s standard-bearer five weeks ago, but she did several interviews while she was Biden’s running mate.

She said serving with Biden was “one of the greatest honors of my career,” and she recounted the moment he called her to tell her he was stepping down and would support her.

“He told me what he had decided to do and… I asked him, ‘Are you sure?’ and he said, ‘Yes,’ and that’s how I found out.”

She said she did not ask Biden to endorse her because “he made it very clear that he would endorse me.”

Harris defended the administration’s policies on the southern border and immigration, noting that her job was to address the “root causes” in other countries that were causing the border crossings.

“We have laws that need to be followed and enforced that relate to people who cross our border illegally, and there should be consequences for that,” Harris said.

Asked about Israel’s war in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack, Harris said, “I am unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to the defense of Israel and its ability to defend itself.” But the vice president also reiterated what she has been saying for months, namely that the number of civilian deaths is too high amid the Israeli offensive.

She also dismissed Republican Donald Trump’s question about her racial identity after he falsely suggested she had changed her presentation for political reasons and “accidentally turned black.” Harris, who is of Black and South Asian descent, said Trump’s suggestion was “the same old, tired playbook.”

“Next question, please,” she said.

Trump and Harris are scheduled to debate on September 10. In a post on Thursday night, Trump appeared to be paying attention during the interview. After the debate came up, he posted: “I’m so excited to debate Comrade Kamala Harris and expose her for the fraud she is.”

Trump went on to say that his Democratic opponent “has changed every single one of her long-held positions, on everything. America will never allow an electoral weapon MARXIST TO BECOME PRESIDENT OF THE USA”

The debate marks the first-ever meeting between Harris and Trump. The opponents were in the same room alone when Harris, as a senator, attended Trump’s joint speeches to Congress.

During the early parts of the interview, Walz watched quietly and nodded as Harris made her main points. Later, he was asked about misstatements, starting with how he described his 24 years of service in the National Guard.

In a 2018 video clip once distributed by the Harris-Walz campaign, Walz spoke out against gun violence, saying, “We can make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in the war, are the only place those weapons are.”

Critics said the comment, “which I brought with me in wartime,” suggested Walz was portraying himself as someone who spent time in a war zone. He said Thursday night that he had slipped up after a school shooting, adding, “My grammar is not always correct.”

Asked about statements that appeared to indicate that he and his wife had conceived their children through in vitro fertilization when in fact they had undergone some other fertility treatment, he said he was confident most Americans understood what he meant and that he joined Republican opposition to abortion rights.

According to the American news agency AP, Democrats’ enthusiasm about their vote in November has increased enormously in recent months. Gallup pollAbout 8 in 10 Democrats say they are now more enthusiastic than usual about voting, compared with 55% in March.

This gives them an enthusiasm they didn’t have earlier this year. Republican enthusiasm has increased much less over the same period, with about two-thirds of Republicans now saying they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting.

At a voter-packed rally Thursday in Savannah, Harris presented her fledgling campaign as the underdog and encouraged the crowd to work hard to get her elected in November.

“We are here to speak the truth and we know this will be a neck-and-neck race to the end,” she said.

Harris ran through a list of Democratic concerns: that Trump would further restrict women’s rights after appointing three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who helped overturn Roe, that he would repeal the Affordable Care Act and that, given the new immunity powers the U.S. Supreme Court grants to presidents, “you could imagine Donald Trump with no restrictions.”

The rally marked the end of a two-day bus tour in southeastern Georgia. Harris has another Labor Day campaign blitz with Biden in Detroit and Pittsburgh, as the election rapidly approaches. The first mail ballots will be sent to voters in two weeks.

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Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Sagar Meghani and Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.