By ZEKE MILLER
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is making an attempt to outmaneuver former President Donald Trump and deal with outdated vulnerabilities on her coverage positions as she begins to fill in how she would govern if elected in November.
Vice presidents hardly ever have coverage portfolios of their very own — and virtually at all times put aside any views that differ from these of the Oval Workplace occupant. Now, after 4 years of following President Joe Biden’s lead, Harris is taking a cautious strategy to unveiling a coverage imaginative and prescient in her personal proper.
However her shock ascendance to the highest of the ticket after Biden dropped his reelection bid additionally means her coverage platform is being pulled together just as quickly.
When Harris inherited Biden’s political operation in late July, the marketing campaign’s web site was quietly scrubbed of the six-point “points” web page that framed the race in opposition to Trump, together with increasing voting protections and restoring nationwide entry to abortion. As a substitute, Harris has peppered her speeches — up to now heavy on biography for herself and her working mate — with broad targets like “increase the center class.” She has referred to as for federal legal guidelines to supply abortion entry and ban assault-style weapons, however has been skinny on the small print of what particularly they’d entail or how she would persuade Congress to make progress on a number of the most hot-button political points.
Requested by reporters on Saturday when she would unveil her coverage platform, Harris promised extra particulars this week and added, “It’ll be targeted on the economic system and what we have to do to deliver down prices and in addition strengthen the economic system total.”
The primary main window into her considering got here this previous weekend, with a proposal pulled not from the coverage backwaters of the Biden administration or the cutting-room ground of the legislative course of however from her rival: Trump.
Harris introduced that she, like Trump, wants to end federal taxation of tipped earnings for workers — with the added caveat that she would restrict the plan to these within the lower- and center incomes. The concept has drawn bipartisan help in current months and is particularly salient in service industry-heavy Nevada.
It’s additionally one of the crucial outstanding concepts embraced by Trump in his 2024 bid to get again into the White Home — a bonus within the view of the Harris camp, which has tried to needle the Republican into making unforced errors.
The Republican was none too amused by Harris endorsing the concept, complaining on his social media platform that “This was a TRUMP concept – She has no concepts, she will be able to solely steal from me.”
Trump continued on the matter in an interview with Elon Musk on Monday evening, criticizing Harris for adopting his concept after what he claimed was harassment by the Biden administration of tipped employees.
On Monday, the White Home mentioned that Biden backed the plan too, although White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wouldn’t deal with why Biden and Harris didn’t push for it throughout their first three-and-a-half years in workplace.
“Clearly, it’s a brand new concept,” she mentioned, however added later in response to criticism from Trump, “Why didn’t they cross it over the past administration?”
In her first weeks as a candidate, Harris’ most pronounced coverage strikes have been to again away from liberal stances she took in her failed 2020 bid for the White Home, together with proposals to ban fracking, set up a single-payer healthcare system and decriminalize unlawful border crossings. Harris dropped out of that heated race earlier than a single vote had been forged however acknowledges that voters now might punish her for these stances if not shortly addressed.
One other complication for Harris comes from her relationship with Biden, who shortly endorsed her and handed her the keys to his political operation after he dropped out.
“The final three and a half years, they’ve been in sync,” mentioned Jean-Pierre. “They’ve been actually on the identical web page. And I presume that that can proceed from right here.”
Biden himself solely started outlining detailed coverage concepts for a second time period throughout his closing, frenzied effort to salvage his candidacy after his disastrous June 27 debate in opposition to Trump. He advocated for restoring abortion entry, elevating the federal minimal wage and passing a brand new surtax on billionaires. Harris has largely embraced all these priorities, together with the incumbent’s name for modifications to the Supreme Court docket.
However all these plans would require congressional help, which proved elusive even when Democrats held unified management of Washington through the first two years of the Biden-Harris administration.
Harris’ marketing campaign, in the meantime, recommended that her tried shifts to the middle are reflective of how she would attempt to deliver consensus to authorities.
“Whereas Donald Trump is wedded to the acute concepts in his Mission 2025 agenda, Vice President Harris believes actual management means bringing all sides collectively to construct consensus,” mentioned Harris spokesman Kevin Munoz. “It’s that strategy that made it doable for the Biden-Harris administration to attain bipartisan breakthroughs on every little thing from infrastructure to gun violence prevention. As President, she is going to take that very same pragmatic strategy, specializing in common sense options for the sake of progress.”
Whereas Trump in current weeks has resorted to private and racially tinged assaults on his new rival, his marketing campaign has been working to place Harris’ coverage goals entrance and heart, aiming to color Harris as a radical liberal, pointing to outdated movies of her discussing coverage positions through the 2020 Democratic major.
“Kamala Harris has flip-flopped on just about each coverage she has supported and lived by for her total profession, from the Border to Suggestions, and the Pretend Information Media isn’t reporting it,” Trump posted Sunday. “She sounds extra like Trump than Trump, copying virtually every little thing. She is conning the American public, and can flip proper again. I’ll MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! There will likely be no flipping!!!”
___
Related Press writers Jill Colvin and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
Initially Printed:
Source link
