WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday that she wouldn’t have done anything differently than Joe Biden has done as president over the last four years, promptly drawing attacks from Republicans eager to cast her as a clone of Biden, who remains unpopular.
“There is not a thing that comes to mind,” Harris said during an interview on ABC’s “The View.” “And I’ve been part of most of the decisions that have had impact.”
The Democratic presidential nominee then listed their administration’s major legislative accomplishments, including capping the cost of insulin for Medicare recipients at $35 and passing a bipartisan infrastructure funding package.
Asked how a Harris presidency would differ from Biden’s, she said they are “obviously two different people” but didn’t give many specifics.
“We have a lot of shared life experiences — for example, the way we feel about our family and our parents and so on. But we’re also different people, and I will bring those sensibilities to how I lead,” Harris said.
“One of the issues that I’m very focused on is what we do around home health care,” she added.
The vice president used her appearance on “The View” to announce a major new initiative aimed at expanding Medicare to cover the cost of long-term in-home care for seniors and people with disabilities.
Polling data suggests voters want to see some daylight between Harris and Biden, who dropped out of the presidential race earlier this year after intraparty questions about his age and ability to win in November. According to September polling from Democratic research firm Blueprint, a list of hypothetical statements Harris could make comparing herself to the sitting president performed best when they “displayed a clear break between her and Biden,” and worse when they didn’t.
Harris aides are grappling with how much to distance her campaign from the president with less than four weeks to go until Election Day, including rolling out new plans on what she would do in office, according to CNN. A senior adviser to the vice president who spoke to the outlet summed up the challenge: “When you’re trying to reach undecided low-intensity voters, how do you actually communicate difference with Biden?”
Biden has certainly struggled on some issues politically. Immigration became one of his biggest vulnerabilities, even as it was Republicans in Congress who killed a bipartisan Senate deal that would have tightened border security. The GOP has also routinely blamed Biden for high inflation, even as economists have said it wasn’t largely his (or Donald Trump’s) fault.
Perhaps most glaringly, the president has failed to use his influence to achieve a ceasefire deal in Gaza, where Israel has been waging a military assault in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks. Biden has overseen billions in military aid to Israel as it bombards the region, spurring a humanitarian crisis that’s left tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians dead. Harris has spoken about the plight of Palestinians, but has not publicly pushed back against his policies.
Harris’ biggest breaks with Biden so far include encouraging support for cryptocurrencies and proposing a 28% tax on long-term capital gains. (The president called for raising it to 39.6%.)
Later in the ABC interview, Harris brought up one other thing that she said she’d do differently from Biden as president.
“I plan on having a Republican in my cabinet,” she said. “What’s the difference between Joe Biden and me? Well, that will be one of the differences.”
Democracy In The Balance
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Republican officials wasted no time in seizing on Harris’ comments, saying they disproved her campaign’s narrative that she represents “change” in America.
“We told you. And now Kamala Harris has told you. She openly admits she would NOT have done anything differently than Joe Biden,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “A Harris Administration is just 4 more years of the same failed policies.”
“A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for four more years of Biden’s policies on inflation, the border, and national security―only with even less competent leadership,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) added in another post.
The Trump campaign piled on, too, sharing a clip from Harris’ interview on social media and mocking some repeated phrasing in her comments, alongside a thinking-face emoji.