CNN panelists said Tuesday that they were surprised by Vice President Kamala Harris telling “The View” co-hosts that “not a thing comes to mind” when Harris was asked what she would do differently from President Joe Biden.
Harris appeared as a special guest on “The View” Tuesday, where she could not name anything she would do differently from President Joe Biden throughout the past four years of his administration. One panelist on “Inside Politics with Dana Bash” said this is “a very obvious” question that would have helped voters learn more about her ahead of the election if she had been able to thoroughly give an answer.
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“I’m surprised frankly that [Harris] doesn’t have more to say about this given that she and her campaign know that this is one of the main questions that voters have about her, and one of the main things she’s been trying to establish as part of her candidacy is the idea she would represent a break from the past four years,” The Wall Street Journal senior political correspondent Molly Ball began.
“And to not be able to come up with something to say in that moment, she continues to not be particularly nimble on her feet in a lot of these interviews, and this is a very obvious question that gave her an opportunity, frankly, to differentiate herself in a way that would’ve made news, that would’ve answered the curiosity of a lot of voters who want to know how she would lead differently, and she’s not very specific in laying that out, and she can’t point to a decision she would’ve made differently in an electorate that doesn’t like the way that this administration had led and doesn’t like the track that this country is on. That may not be a very satisfactory answer,” Ball continued.
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The New York Times White House correspondent Zolan Kanno-Youngs said Harris has struggled to “detach” herself from the Biden administration as she simultaneously is trying to represent herself as the “change candidate” while not breaking on policy with the president.
“This has been the central point of tension when it comes to the Harris campaign. You are framing yourself as a change candidate, but you are also representing an incumbency, you were vice president for four years and often saying you were the last one in the room when President Biden would make a decision. So it’s tough to detach yourself from a president who has consistently in the polls been unpopular with the public as well … Thus far, the policy platforms are very similar. So this will continue to be the challenge. How do you represent yourself as a change candidate when your policy platform is so similar to the person in office?” Kanno-Youngs said.
Kanno-Youngs pointed out that Harris’ policy proposals are similar to Biden’s, but she privately has expressed disagreement with Biden on foreign policy and his response to the Israel-Gaza war.
During her appearance with “The View,” Harris said she was involved in “most of the decisions” made by Biden, naming the administration’s policy to cap insulin costs at $35 for senior citizens.
The vice president reportedly began plotting to distance herself from Biden on his economic policies and inflation in an attempt to redefine herself, anonymous advisers told Axios in August.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.