US VICE PRESIDENT Kamala Harris has promised that her economic plans would “grow the middle class” if she is elected as president while depicting Donald Trump as a candidate that cares only about the rich.
Harris was interviewed by MSNBC last night, her first major interview solo with a TV news station after she and her VP-pick Tim Walz spoke to CNN together in August. The conversation was dominated by discussion of the economy, with some attention also paid to immigration and reproductive rights.
Only 39 days remain until Americans take to the polls on 5 November to elect their next president, with early voting already open in several states.
As both of the leading candidates push to attract votes their way before November, Harris insisted in last night’s interview that her plans for the economy would do more to help ordinary Americans than her opponent’s.
“My vision for the economy – I call it an opportunity economy – is about making sure that all of them, wherever they start, wherever they are, have the ability to achieve their dreams and ambitions,” Harris said.
She said part of her vision for the economy is dealing with everyday challenges that people face and addressing them with “common sense” solutions, such as affordable housing.
Harris claimed that Trump “has an agenda” that would include making it more difficult for workers to earn overtime, cutting off access to small business loans, and tariffs that would mean an average working person would “spend 20% more on everyday necessities and an estimated $4,000 more a year on those everyday necessities”.
“Donald Trump has a history of taking care of the rich. There’s nothing wrong with being rich, but they should pay their fair share, not tax cuts for the billionaires and the top corporations in our country and then not really paying much attention to middle class families,” she said.
“My perspective on the economy is when you grow the middle class, America’s economy is stronger, and there’s empirical evidence to put my point correct.”
She said her tax plans would include reductions that would apply to around 100 million Americans and that anyone earning less than $400,000 a year would not see their taxes increase.
On immigration, a hot button issue in the US, Harris said: “We do have a broken immigration system and it needs to be fixed.”
“Months ago, some of the most conservative members of the United States Congress came together with others and proposed a border security bill that would have put in 1,500 new border agents, would have put more money into stemming the flow of fentanyl… and Would have put more resources into our ability to prosecute transnational criminal organizations,” Harris said
“Donald Trump got word of the bill, realised it was going to fix a problem he wanted to run on, and told them to kill the bill. He killed a bill so he could run on a problem instead of fixing the problem,” she said.
“My pledge is that when elected president, if the American people will have me, I will bring that bill back and I will sign it into law. We need a comprehensive plan that includes what we need to do to fortify not only our border, but deal with the fact that we also need to create legal paths to citizenship.”
Access to abortion is another major issue in this election cycle in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade.
Harris was asked to respond to remarks made by Trump that he would be a protector of women.
“Donald Trump is also the person who said women should be punished for exercising a decision that they, rightly, should be able to make about their own body and their future,” Harris said.
“As a result of that perspective that he has about women, he also then chose three members of the United States Supreme Court who did, as he intended, undo the protections of Roe v Wade, and now in state after state, you see laws being passed that do punish women,” she said.
“I don’t think the women of America need him to say he’s going to protect them. The women of America need him to trust them.”
Asked if people can trust her, Harris said: “Yes. Yes. I’m not perfect, but I will tell you, I’m always going to put the needs of people first.”
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