Vice President Kamala Harris has not held one press conference since joining the presidential race 50 days ago, underscoring her campaign strategy of keeping her policies ambiguous and perhaps flexible.
Critics say Harris’s “basement” strategy raises concerns that she is an empty political shell with intentions to do or say whatever is needed to get elected, but the Harris campaign says voters do not care about policy.“I don’t think the American public are really interested in the minutiae of the mechanism of how she will increase taxes,” Gina Raimondo, U.S. Commerce Secretary, told CNBC Monday on Squawk Box.
Harris’s proposed economic solutions to the Biden-Harris administration’s economy reportedly include Soviet-style price controls, a tax on unrealized capital gains, an expanded death tax, and a raised income tax.“It will be the beginning of the end for America if Kamala wins,” Tom Moulton of SleepNet Corporation in Hampton, New Hampshire, said. “Our country cannot and will not be able to withstand a Kamala Harris presidency and the progressive Democratic agenda. Our way of life as we know it will be over.”
The lack of policy specifics and Harris’s unwillingness to answer questions during an unscripted press conference will put greater emphasis on her debate performance on Tuesday, when she will likely try to cast herself as an agent of change, even though she has been in power for nearly four years.
The Trump team does not expect Harris’s debate performance to be disastrous for the Democrat party, like President Joe Biden’s performance this summer, which ultimately caused Democrats to force him to step aside. Harris will have a “fine” debate performance, Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita told House Republicans on a phone call Friday.
Since joining the race eight weeks ago, Harris has only sat for one interview, which was prerecorded. In those eight weeks, Harris allegedly changed her view, outright flip-flopped, or has an unknown position in nine areas:
- Banning plastic straws (Flip-flopped)
- A mandate for only producing electric and hydrogen vehicles by 2035 (Unknown)
- Banning fracking (Flip-flopped)
- Gun confiscation through a buyback program (Allegedly no longer supports according to anonymous campaign spokesperson)
- Decriminalizing illegally crossing the southern border (Allegedly no longer supports according to anonymous campaign spokesperson)
- Reparations (Unknown)
- Building a border wall (Formerly opposed, now allegedly supports according to anonymous campaign spokesperson)
- A federal jobs guarantee (Allegedly no longer supports according to anonymous campaign spokesperson)
- Medicare for All (Flip-flopped)
Harris’s only interview–on CNN with Dana Bash–exposed her campaign’s catch-22, which Trump will have an opportunity to exploit during the debate: Harris owned the Biden-Harris administration’s economic record while simultaneously blaming Trump for it. The contradiction was stark, producing an outcome that forced Harris to tout her administration’s policies in order to validate her candidacy, while at the same time she undermined her record and her candidacy.
Harris cannot powerfully campaign on policies to fix crime, inflation, and border security without undermining the Biden-Harris administration’s policies, yet she must tout the administration’s policies to validate her record and candidacy.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
