During an interview with NBC News on Tuesday, 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris responded to a question on voters saying that the policies of the Biden administration have harmed them by stating, “let me be very clear, mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration. I bring my own experiences, my own ideas to it, and it’s informed a number of my areas of focus, most of which are on, to your point, lowering costs.” But Biden has led “on what we have done to fix so much of what has been broken in terms of the economy because of Donald Trump’s mismanagement.”
NBC News Senior Washington Correspondent Hallie Jackson asked, “We were just talking about the campaign trail yesterday and these key Rust Belt battlegrounds as they call them, talking with undecided voters. You are reaching out that olive branch to these voters. You want to bring them on board. For them, for so many voters, we know that a huge issue for them is the economy, it’s the cost of living. I have been on the campaign trail, I hear that in the field again and again. You look at some of the numbers on this and our new NBC News poll shows that more voters think that the Biden administration policies have hurt them rather than helped them. And I wonder, are the last four years an obstacle to you in this race?”
Harris answered, “Here’s how I look at it: First of all, let me be very clear, mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration. I bring my own experiences, my own ideas to it, and it’s informed a number of my areas of focus, most of which are on, to your point, lowering costs. … I am very clear, the cost of groceries, still too high. The voters know it. I know it. So, part of my plan includes what we need to do to bring down the price of groceries, including the work I will do dealing with price gouging, something I dealt with when I was attorney general, something I will deal with going forward. The cost of housing, I’m speaking with people of every background, in every area of the country, of every age, and the idea of the American Dream was something that previous generations could count on, not as much anymore. Bringing down the cost of housing by doing what I have done in my career that, perhaps, is a different approach, which is really actively working with the private sector, for example, homebuilders, to create incentives for them to build millions of new homes and housing units so we can bring down the cost, including what I will do to give people a $25,000 down payment assistance if they are a first-time homebuyer.”
Harris continued, “So, these are examples. The example is what I’m going to do to expand the child tax credit, because, listen, young parents in particular, they need help. … 6,000 extra dollars during the first year of their child’s life can help them buy a crib or a car seat or clothes, the things that are so crucial to that phase of their child’s development. So, my plans and my policies are really directed at exactly your point, doing what we must do to bring down the cost of living, but also to help people not just get by, but get ahead.”
Later in the interview, Harris stated that Biden “has done the work that has been about being a leader on what we have done to fix so much of what has been broken in terms of the economy because of Donald Trump’s mismanagement.”
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