Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: When Kamala Harris first ran for president in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: her campaign fizzled before the first votes were cast. Some
Speaker 2: said she struggled to gain traction because voters couldn't figure
Speaker 2: out what she stood for. And in the two months
Speaker 2: and she's taken over the Democratic ticket, the focus is
Speaker 2: back on that question.
Speaker 3: I think voters do have a lot of questions about
Speaker 3: the vice president's policies.
Speaker 2: Harris became the Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden dropped
Speaker 2: out of the race, and now voters across the country
Speaker 2: have to get to know Harris all over again. So
Speaker 2: we wanted to dig into what we do know when
Speaker 2: it comes to the one issue most voters say is
Speaker 2: driving their choice, the economy. Today on the show, I
Speaker 2: speak with Bloomberg Politics reporter Josh Wingrove, who's been covering
Speaker 2: Harris at the White House and on the trail, and
Speaker 2: with California Bureau Chief Karen Breslau, who's been tracking Harris's
Speaker 2: political moves since she first interviewed her back in two
Speaker 2: thousand and five. We pieced together what we know about
Speaker 2: Harris's economic message and what a harris presidency could mean
Speaker 2: for everything from the domestic economy to global trade. This
Speaker 2: is the big take DC. I'm Sarah Holder. Thank you,
Speaker 2: Josh and Karen for being here. So I wanted to
Speaker 2: start with a really basic question. Harris talks a lot
Speaker 2: about building what she calls an opportunity economy. We've heard
Speaker 2: her mention it several times during her debate with former
Speaker 2: President Donald Trump and in her rally speeches. What does
Speaker 2: she mean by an opportunity economy?
Speaker 1: I mean she's talking with equity and this is stitched
Speaker 1: through a lot of the things that she's done if
Speaker 1: you look into her record, things that have animated her
Speaker 1: in her time as vice president and before include making
Speaker 1: sure that people who want to start small businesses, in
Speaker 1: particular people of color who want to start small businesses,
Speaker 1: have access to capital. I think we'd be missing part
Speaker 1: of the story if we don't draw that link between
Speaker 1: what she sees as fundamental sort of inequities. If certain
Speaker 1: business proposals are hitting a wall because minority landers don't
Speaker 1: have the money to get to them and big lenders
Speaker 1: aren't giving them the time of day, she sees that
Speaker 1: as something worth tackling. You see it with her call
Speaker 1: for a wider child tax credit. Harris in particular has
Speaker 1: talked about six thousand dollars in a tax credit for
Speaker 1: people who have a baby. You know, in the first
Speaker 1: year of a child's life. As a father of a
Speaker 1: young child, that can attest to how expensive that can be.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, well, I.
Speaker 2: Want to understand where that focus on equity and opportunity
Speaker 2: really comes from. Karen, you first spoke with Harris back
Speaker 2: in two thousand and five, and you've interviewed her over
Speaker 2: the years since then.
Speaker 3: Thank you to the Attorney General of California, Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3: Thank you all.
Speaker 2: That was from a twenty twelve interview you did with
Speaker 2: her in Sacramento for an organization called She Shares. You've
Speaker 2: really seen her full arc on the political stage. What
Speaker 2: do you see as her most insistent priority. We're seeing
Speaker 2: things like that call for a child tax credit that
Speaker 2: Josh mentioned. What is the through line that really drives her?
Speaker 3: It's clearly kids. There is something at every turn in
Speaker 3: her career and in her life she has come around
Speaker 3: to who are the powerless? Who are the voiceless?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Her messaging has been all over the place, but in
Speaker 3: terms of how do you use power, whether it's the
Speaker 3: power of a prosecutor, whether it's the power of a regulator,
Speaker 3: whether it's economic power. Who's it going to benefit? And
Speaker 3: she always would ask people, how is this going to
Speaker 3: play on the streets? You know, if it's a mortgage settlement,
Speaker 3: are these loans going to be forgiven? Are how are
Speaker 3: these loan discharges going to affect whether it's students, whether
Speaker 3: it's homeowners. Where does the money end up? She sees
Speaker 3: power fundamentally from the outside in and from the bottom up.
Speaker 3: She was an outsider in San Francisco politics. She came
Speaker 3: from Oakland, from Berkeley, just across the bay, but a
Speaker 3: world apart right, San Francisco is a clubby democratic city
Speaker 3: where power is dynastic. It's connected to families, the pelosis.
Speaker 3: Gavin Newsom, the current governor, who was her kind of
Speaker 3: her frenemy coming up in San Francisco politics. But now
Speaker 3: it is very different. She is the sitting vice president.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the trickiest things. Harris is
Speaker 1: campaigning both as an incumbent and as a change agent. Right.
Speaker 1: For instance, political histories littered with people who make pledges
Speaker 1: about housing starts and don't get anywhere near them. She's
Speaker 1: proposed expanding assistance that would require Congress to first time
Speaker 1: home buyers to twenty five thousand dollars. When we're talking
Speaker 1: direct subsidies, what she wants to do, she wants to
Speaker 1: talk about building three million new units of housing over
Speaker 1: the course of her first terms. The Republicans then turn
Speaker 1: around and say that price of housing has gone up
Speaker 1: under the Biden Harris administration. You're in the government now,
Speaker 1: why don't you do something about it?
Speaker 2: Josh? You spoke about the challenge Harris faces running both
Speaker 2: as this change maker and as an incumbent. Yesterday, the
Speaker 2: FED cut rates by half a percentage point, which indicates
Speaker 2: that they feel like inflation is getting under control. But
Speaker 2: under the current Biden Harris administration, many Americans say they
Speaker 2: aren't feeling good about the economy, that gas and grocery
Speaker 2: prices are too high. What has Harra said about addressing inflation.
Speaker 1: Harris has chalked a lot of this up to corporate
Speaker 1: greed and said that grocery companies and chains and food
Speaker 1: providers are in her mind, colluding to keep prices high
Speaker 1: even after we've seen leveling off, or even disinflation and
Speaker 1: deflation of grocery prices. Essentially, she is trying to not
Speaker 1: take the blame on that. Breaking from Biden is something
Speaker 1: that's tricky for her, right She's not going to want
Speaker 1: to stab them in the bag. But there are differences.
Speaker 1: She's a fifty nine year old whorew up in the
Speaker 1: Bay Area. He's an eighty one year old raised Claymont, Delaware,
Speaker 1: just outside of Philadelphia. They see the world differently. One
Speaker 1: thing that has struck us traveling with her is Harris
Speaker 1: does not really go to like manufacturing places. Biden love's
Speaker 1: going anywhere with a hard hat. She doesn't. She goes
Speaker 1: to small businesses. She goes to a spice store.
Speaker 4: I finally got help of debate Prep to look at
Speaker 4: these spices best prior to bate Prep.
Speaker 1: So far, Biden sees manufacturing is this sort of silver
Speaker 1: bullet for a litmus test on how the economy is doing.
Speaker 1: I think for Harris, if you had to pick one,
Speaker 1: you'd pick small businesses if they are thriving. She thinks
Speaker 1: the economy is doing well right now.
Speaker 4: The tax edestion for startup companies, for small businesses is
Speaker 4: five thousand dollars I'm growing it to fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 4: because nobody can start a small business on five thousand.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And Karen who has influenced her policy views, who has
Speaker 2: she leaned on as she went through her political rise.
Speaker 3: Two figures for sister Maya Harris, who was the head
Speaker 3: of the Northern California ACLU, who is a very conventional liberal.
Speaker 3: And Maya's husband Tony West, who is an attorney, also
Speaker 3: comes from you know, has a civil rights perspective, was
Speaker 3: in the Obama DOJ but is also very rooted in
Speaker 3: the business world of the Bay Area, who was most
Speaker 3: recently chief counsel at uber As currently on leave. I
Speaker 3: was struck by in her convention speech when she called
Speaker 3: out creating a fair playing field for founders, which is
Speaker 3: a code word you know here in the Bay Area
Speaker 3: for the people who generate enormous wealth giant companies, but
Speaker 3: they all start small.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: When she was Attorney General of California, she went around
Speaker 3: and visited then tiny startups such as Airbnb, Dropbox, Palanteer,
Speaker 3: the maker of national security software. She's very drawn to
Speaker 3: the innovators, to the upstarts, to the disruptors.
Speaker 2: But just how will those influences and Harris's focus on
Speaker 2: equity shape her stances on the big issues like tarriffs, taxes,
Speaker 2: and anti trust policy. I dig into that with Josh
Speaker 2: after the break. Josh, you mentioned that Harris blames inflation
Speaker 2: on corporate greed, and the Biden administration has made anti
Speaker 2: trust regulation a cornerstone of its economic policy. What do
Speaker 2: we know about how Harris thinks about anti trust and
Speaker 2: tech regulation in particular.
Speaker 1: We know that she's biding her tongue. This is a
Speaker 1: campaign for Harris of keeping doors open. She has chosen
Speaker 1: to eat crow, on flip flopping on things, on backtracking
Speaker 1: from more forward leaning positions that she held not that
Speaker 1: long ago. I would add, but I don't mean that
Speaker 1: to be glib. She's just trying to again build that
Speaker 1: sort of broader coalition of folks. And so one thing
Speaker 1: she's declined to say is how she feels about current
Speaker 1: officials in the Biden Harrison administration, including Lena Kahan, the
Speaker 1: head of the FTC who's something of a folk hero
Speaker 1: for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, Jonathan Canter
Speaker 1: at DOJ, and Gary Gensler, who has become controversial in
Speaker 1: particular for the crypto community. So there's all these sort
Speaker 1: of question marks swirling around these three figures who are,
Speaker 1: for different reasons, lightning Rods. I personally think looking at
Speaker 1: Harris's background in the way that she saw her role
Speaker 1: as ag that she's cut from the same cloth as
Speaker 1: the Biden the Harris administration has been when it comes
Speaker 1: to antitrust enforcement. So I think the betting odds or
Speaker 1: that this is going to continue, but I think she
Speaker 1: just right now is not wanting to do anything that
Speaker 1: upends any apple cart, however tiny as she tries to get,
Speaker 1: you know, two hundred seventy Electoral College votes.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about global economic policy for a minute. Harris
Speaker 2: talked about competition with China in the recent debate.
Speaker 4: For example, a policy about China should be in making
Speaker 4: sure the United States of America wins the competition for
Speaker 4: the twenty first century.
Speaker 2: How would has approach trade and tariffs.
Speaker 1: Her approach would build from Biden's, but it contrasts to
Speaker 1: what Trump is talking about. I don't think people have
Speaker 1: really reflected on what Trump's tariff proposals would mean for
Speaker 1: American companies, American consumers, American supply chains. There would be winners.
Speaker 1: For sure. There would also be another side to.
Speaker 2: That coin, is it consumers would be the losers.
Speaker 1: Consumers would certainly pay higher prices if across the board
Speaker 1: tariffs were applied in America, a country that imports so
Speaker 1: many of its goods. And so if you're someone that
Speaker 1: wants to remake the American economy, what Trump's proposing is
Speaker 1: not the status quo. And so Harris choosing essentially a
Speaker 1: version of the status quo is itself a policy choice.
Speaker 1: And so what she's saying is that she will be,
Speaker 1: when it comes to the global economy, an agent of
Speaker 1: process and predictability, and she thinks Trump is an agent
Speaker 1: of chaos, throwing tariffs left, right and center. Biden has
Speaker 1: not avoided tariffs. In fact, he's kept Trump's China tariffs,
Speaker 1: for instance, in place and even added to them. Keeping
Speaker 1: Trump's tariffs in place was mostly a China play, and
Speaker 1: there's broad bipart of an agreement that China is a
Speaker 1: threat economically to the United States. When Trump talks about
Speaker 1: across the board tariffs, that is a different thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's one thing to want to carry out
Speaker 2: some of the goals and agendas that were set under
Speaker 2: the Biden administration. But another is whether and when and
Speaker 2: how she can really carry them out. Josh, what will
Speaker 2: Harris be able to deliver on that Biden couldn't or
Speaker 2: what are some of the challenges that might stand in
Speaker 2: her way.
Speaker 1: Barack Obama took office with Democrats holding the House and Senate.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump took office with Republicans holding the House in Senate.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden took office with Democrats holding the House and Senate.
Speaker 1: It does not look like Kamala Harris will. She will
Speaker 1: have immediately less power than any of her three predecessors
Speaker 1: and of course many presidents before them, and so immediately
Speaker 1: she will face worries that Democrats will wonder, why aren't
Speaker 1: you doing anything? And the answer will be she doesn't
Speaker 1: have the votes. For example, there's a ticking tax hike
Speaker 1: hanging over the selection. The Trump tax cuts expire next
Speaker 1: year if no one does anything, which is often what
Speaker 1: happens in Washington. People's taxes are going up. A lot
Speaker 1: of people's taxes are going up, and so right now
Speaker 1: this presidential race will determine who either chooses to rewrite
Speaker 1: the tax code or lets that ticking tax hike go off.
Speaker 1: What Trump is saying he wants to lower corporate taxes.
Speaker 1: He wants to lower other people's taxes, including on tips.
Speaker 1: Assuming that there were not widespread cuts with it, which
Speaker 1: of course there might be, we'd be talking about a
Speaker 1: much larger deficit. Harris has talked about raising corporate taxes,
Speaker 1: raising taxes on the wealthy as well as high earners,
Speaker 1: and changing how they're tax.
Speaker 4: Billionaires and big corporations must pay their fair share in tax.
Speaker 1: There are ways for people to lower the Medicare tax
Speaker 1: that they pay, for instance, she wants to close that.
Speaker 1: She thinks it's a loophole. She's talking about certain tax
Speaker 1: proposals high earners and the wealthy, which are of course
Speaker 1: not always necessarily the same thing and corporations. But a
Speaker 1: lot of this will come down to Congress. And this
Speaker 1: is one of the big things hanging over Harris. If
Speaker 1: push comes to shove next year, if she is the
Speaker 1: president and she is in some hard fought, bare knuckled
Speaker 1: tax negotiation on the hill, what are the things that
Speaker 1: Harris is really going to dig in on. Is it
Speaker 1: raising the corporate tax rate to twenty eight percent, is
Speaker 1: it enacting as stronger child tax credit? Her history suggests
Speaker 1: probably the latter. She probably more fungible on the corporate
Speaker 1: tax rate. She's going to try to want to do
Speaker 1: things that dig in on families.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to The Big Take DC podcast from
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was produced by
Speaker 2: Julia Press with support from Thomas lou who also fact
Speaker 2: checked it. It was mixed by Rishi Bajakol. It was
Speaker 2: edited by Aaron Edwards, Wendy Benjaminson, and Jeremy Keane. Special
Speaker 2: thanks to Akayla Gardner. Naomi Shaven is our senior producer
Speaker 2: who also edited this episode. Elizabeth Ponso and Wendy Benjaminson
Speaker 2: both provide editorial direction. Nicole Beemsterbor is our executive producer.
Speaker 2: Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. Please follow and
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