Kamala Harris 4.0: Everything you need to know

As the wheels of Air Force Two touched down in Georgia, Kamala Harris stepped into the spotlight, marking the beginning of a new chapter in her political journey. With a significant crowd gathering to witness her Atlanta appearance, the vice president signalled her intent to be a key player in the upcoming 2024 election. Poised and wearing her signature baby blue suit, Harris energized supporters and highlighted her strategic economic vision, promising a robust challenge ahead..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here..By Josh Wingrove.The wheels of Air Force Two touched down in Georgia, and the latest Kamala Harris era began. The vice president drew a bigger crowd than President Joe Biden had gotten all year—a show of strength in the South, in a state Harris thrust back into play. This was her moment. .___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Harris, wearing a baby blue suit and her customary American flag pin, took the stage in Atlanta, with Megan Thee Stallion on hand. Fresh off a record, jaw-dropping fundraising week, she taunted former President Donald Trump to electric cheers, before pausing for a warning. "Let's level-set, friends," she said. "We are the underdogs in this race. We are.".With that, the 2024 election was relaunched, pitting Trump against Harris while she's in the midst of yet another reinvention. Harris was once a prosecutor and the California attorney general, seeing an opening as a tough-on-crime Democrat; then she moved to the left as a senator and presidential candidate; then she changed again, shifting back to the middle as a dutiful vice president to a moderate chief executive..With early voting beginning in September and Republicans hammering her, she's embracing the ambiguity as a strategic asset. She's both running on the Biden-Harris record and at arm's length from it, in an election where the winner gets veto power over next year's rewrite of the tax code. The fate of Democrats is in the hands of the younger enigmatic candidate, who's risen and fallen and risen again, whose aides, even now, are feverishly trying to answer a fundamental question: What does Kamala 4.0 look like?.Harris allies say she'll borrow more from her most recent act than her more liberal incarnations of the past. Trump is running against the latter, casting Harris as "dangerously liberal" despite her far more benign campaign message. They've agreed to square off in a debate in September. On Aug. 6 Harris picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, another sign that she plans to roll out a kitchen-table economic plan—and perhaps pay more heed to progressives than business lobbyists..Read more: 🔒 The Economist – Can Kamala Harris win?.Biden zeroed in on manufacturing, but Harris' economic focus has been on small businesses, entrepreneurs, so-called junk fees, housing and fairness issues. She's also been an occasional emissary to corporate America. One of her first acts as vice president, in February 2021, was calling Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s chief executive officer, and Brian Moynihan, Bank of America's CEO, to urge them to accelerate the pace of Paycheck Protection Program loans, particularly in underserved communities..She was a champion within the administration of canceling student loan debt, favored other measures such as the expanded Child Tax Credit and moved to restrict medical debt from appearing on credit reports. She's announced sprawling initiatives such as the Economic Opportunity Coalition, which mustered funding commitments from major banks for small and minority lenders, and a public-private partnership meant to spur growth in Central America. She will deliver a speech on August 16 in Raleigh, N.C. that will focus on "her plan to lower costs for middle-class families and take on corporate price gouging," according to her campaign..Harris has hired a top Treasury Department official, Brian Nelson, as an adviser while also relying on longtime allies, such as former policy chief Rohini Kosoglu. And a trio of outsiders—Mike Pyle, her first economic adviser as VP, and Brian Deese and Bharat Ramamurti, two former Biden economic aides—is helping polish a refreshed economic pitch drawing on the Biden and Harris records, people familiar with the planning say..Harris is poised to rebrand and refocus attention on key achievements, with some adjustment, rather than roll out sweeping new proposals, though her plans remain fluid. She has pledged to rebuild the middle class and is campaigning on the administration's accomplishments, such as capping some insulin costs at $35 a month, mimicking Biden. Days after the Atlanta meet, at another massive rally in Wisconsin, Harris pledged to go after "illegal price gouging," to curb corporate landlords' rent hikes, to fight Big Pharma and to expand a cap on prescription drug costs to more Americans—all pillars Biden was running on. "Strengthening our economy and building up the middle class will be a defining goal of our presidency," she declared. "When America's middle class is strong, America is strong.".Read more: Global leaders size up Kamala Harris's rise, brace for Trump victory.Harris supports raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, the people say, fully in line with Biden's most recent budget proposal, which also calls for taxes on wealthy crypto holders. There are no plans for Harris' campaign to announce sprawling new policy, such as on cryptocurrency, the people say. The overall direction hints at something of a live-and-let-live approach toward Wall Street, tempered by a continued antitrust drive and a prosecutor's itch for enforcement..Pyle says Harris' guiding economic principles include helping working families, particularly those with young kids, and paying attention to Main Street, small business and entrepreneurship..Her campaign is "an opportunity for her to really highlight the values that have motivated her over the past three-and-a-half years as vice president," he says. Harris, ever an attorney general at heart, Pyle adds, isn't shy about enforcement but maintains a willingness to help stakeholders: "She really displayed a full toolkit in respect of how she engages with business," including a readiness to "hold feet to the fire.".One example jumps to mind. As attorney general, Harris helped spearhead a case against the banks over foreclosure practices, leading to a 2012 settlement of about $20 billion for California. She also has a long track record of going after Big Oil, and a Harris presidency would probably be more aggressive than Biden's in confronting oil companies for past pollution..Some potential targets are clear. In a recent closed-door meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, she popped a surprise question: What did the Canadians think about the risk of TikTok? Harris, who's joined the app herself, opposes shuttering it but supports a push for forced divestiture to eliminate Chinese influence over the app's algorithms or access to its data..Republicans are keen for a fight. "As vice president, Kamala Harris was leading the cheers for the party of high prices and open borders," Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Senate Republican, told reporters on June 30..Behind closed doors, Harris is indefatigable and can be exacting. Staff say she demands a high level of performance, an expectation in part stoked by a belief that she faces more scrutiny as a barrier-breaking candidate. She's also guarded and rarely extemporizes..Harris extended an olive branch to corporations earlier this year, hosting regular meetings with top executives including Dimon, Visa CEO Ryan McInerney, Teneo Chair Ursula Burns and former American Express CEO Ken Chenault. Harris has fostered ties with World Bank President Ajay Banga and Microsoft President Brad Smith, who joined Harris' Central American initiative and has fundraised for her..Read more: Democrats divided over Kamala Harris' nomination after Biden exit.More than 200 venture capitalists publicly backed Harris' White House bid on July 31, saying Silicon Valley and other industries would collapse without "strong, trustworthy institutions." Those who signed the "VCs for Kamala" pledge included billionaires Mark Cuban, Reid Hoffman and Vinod Khosla..Under Harris, the short list for Treasury secretary is expected to be the same as it was for Biden. National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo and chief of staff Jeff Zients are all candidates, people familiar with the matter say. Harris has worked regularly with Adeyemo, in particular, on some economic initiatives, such as funding minority lenders..Questions are swirling over whether Harris will bow to calls to shift on some issues. For example, donors are urging her to replace antitrust crusader Lina Khan, whose tenure as chair of the Federal Trade Commission has made her a hero among progressives. Although Harris has given no signal of frustration with Khan, the campaign declined to comment on personnel. "The administration has a three-and-a-half-year governing record, and the VP is proud of that record, and you'll see her out there making the case," Pyle says, responding to questions about antitrust enforcement..For all the excitement surrounding her candidacy, Harris is flying a plane being rebuilt in midair. Biden's announcement came so quickly, she couldn't reach her husband, Doug Emhoff, after his SoulCycle class in Los Angeles. Harris consolidated support rapidly that day from the vice president's residence, calling about 100 lawmakers and party figures. She wore a Howard University sweatshirt and ordered pizza for staff, taking anchovies on hers..The nascent Harris campaign booked no TV ads in its first week. Trump, meanwhile, raced out of the gate to define her as an extremist liberal. A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll in July found Harris had wiped away Trump's lead, but the race remains a toss-up..Harris is remaking her campaign staff modestly, drawing on familiar faces and from the ranks of aides to Barack Obama, including David Plouffe. Walz, who started his political career as a moderate member of Congress, has since embraced progressive principles such as expanded tuition subsidies, child tax credits and family leave. Walz accomplished much as governor with a razor-thin Democratic majority; Harris, meanwhile, was the deciding vote on key bills for Biden, including the Inflation Reduction Act, a vulnerability now. In other words, both have signaled a comfort with pushing through Democratic priorities with the slimmest of margins. Expect that to continue. It's Harris' party now, whatever the era. —With Steve Dennis, Akayla Gardner, Jennifer Dlouhy and Bill Allison.Read also:.George Soros backs Kamala Harris, but other Democrat donors want a contest🔒 Democrats are undervaluing Kamala Harris as presidential candidate: Patricia Lopez🔒 Kamala Harris is the future of the Democrats no matter what: Erika D. Smith.© 2024 Bloomberg L.P.

Kamala Harris 4.0: Everything you need to know

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