Vice President Kamala Harris focused on the economy and touched on several other issues during her first major one-on-one television interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.
Harris sat down with MSNBC‘s Stephanie Ruhle on Wednesday for the interview, which aired on the news network hours after she laid out a plan for an “opportunity economy” during a campaign speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The vice president contrasted her economic vision with the plans of former President Donald Trump during the interview, while also addressing issues like immigration and Trump’s recent remarks on women.
The following are three key moments from the interview:
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris waits to speak at a campaign rally at United Auto Workers Local 900 on August 8 in Wayne, Michigan. Harris was interviewed by MSNBC on Wednesday.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Harris on the Economy and Trump’s Tariff Plan
Trump has proposed putting new 10 percent to 20 percent tariffs on imported goods if he gets reelected. The former president recently claimed that he would not require approval from Congress to enact his plan.
A number of economists have warned that Trump’s proposal, which he says would target countries that are “ripping us off,” could adversely affect U.S. consumers and businesses.
Harris, who says that the Trump plan amounts to a new “national sales tax” since increased import costs caused by tariffs would likely be passed on to consumers, denounced the plan during her MSNBC interview on Wednesday.
“You don’t just throw around the idea of just tariffs across the board,” Harris said after Ruhle pointed out that President Joe Biden has some limited tariffs in place and asked whether she thought there were “good” or “bad” tariffs. “[Trump is] just not very serious about how he thinks about some of these issues.”
“One must be serious and have a plan,” she added. “And a real plan that’s not just about some talking point ending in an exclamation in a political rally, but actually putting the thought into what will be the return on the investment and the economic impact on everyday people.”
Harris went on to tout her proposals for $25,000 in “down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers,” a $6,000 child tax credit and a $50,000 “tax deduction for first-time small businesses.”
In response to a request for comment, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung emailed the following statement to Newsweek on Wednesday night: “Every word that comes out of Kamala Harris’ mouth is a lie, except when she is spewing violent and hateful rhetoric that led to multiple assassination attempts against [former] President Trump.”
Harris on ‘Broken Immigration System’
“We do have a broken immigration system,” Harris said after being asked what she would do to help communities “at capacity” after taking in migrants. “It needs to be fixed.”
Harris then pointed to the bipartisan border security bill that Trump urged Republicans to kill earlier this year, with the vice president saying that her opponent does not want to fix immigration and instead uses the issue only for political purposes.
“Donald Trump got word of the bill, realized it was going to fix a problem that he wanted to run on, and told them to kill the bill,” Harris said. “He killed a bill that would have actually been a solution because he wants to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.
“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,” she added. “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 pathways to citizenship.”
Women’s Rights and Trump’s ‘Protector’ Remark
Trump told supporters at a Pennsylvania rally on Monday that women would “no longer be thinking about abortion” if he returned to the White House while pledging to be, from the Oval Office, the “protector” of women.
Harris addressed the remark during her interview with Ruhle, denouncing the role that the former president played in the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and pointing out that Trump previously said that “some form of punishment” should be given to women who get abortions.
“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.
“He also then chose three members of the United States Supreme Court who did as he intended, undid the protections of Roe v. Wade, and now in state after state you see laws being passed that do punish women,” she continued.
Harris went on to say the following of Trump: “I don’t think the women of America need him to say that he’s going to protect them; the women of America need him to trust them.”
Update 09/25/24, 10 p.m. ET: This article has been updated to include a statement from Cheung.
