Vice President Kamala Harris’ senior advisor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, repeatedly stated Friday on CNN the vice president’s comments about shooting intruders were “a joke,” claiming she knew it would be in the news cycle.
During a Thursday interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harris said she would shoot a home intruder before laughing and admitting she “probably shouldn’t have said that.” On “The Lead With Jake Tapper,” Bottoms emphasized how the vice president was joking and highlighted her support for “the Second Amendment” in response to Tapper’s push back about the comment.
“Well, she was joking. I mean, obviously, the vice president’s given multiple interviews and she knows that every single thing that she says will be picked apart. So I mean, it was a joke and she knew that we would still be talking about it today,” Bottoms said.
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“But I think it’s important that people know that the vice president respects the right to bear arms. That she supports the Second Amendment, but she wants responsible gun ownership and she wants our communities to be safe,” Bottoms continued. “So it was a joke that we‘re still talking about today. But again, I think it humanizes the vice president, and I think that‘s important as we are 46 days from the election.”
During her first presidential debate against former President Donald Trump on Sept. 10, Harris stated she and running mate Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz were both “gun owners,” adding that they’re “not taking anybody’s guns away.”
The vice president has continued to support a ban on so-called “assault weapons” and require universal background checks for all firearm purchases, including those for all handgun purchases. While running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, Harris called for mandatory gun buyback programs for “assault weapons,” and told MSNBC’s Craig Melvin in October 2019 she may confiscate “as many as 10 million guns.”
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