ANALYSIS — If Vice President Kamala Harris has a legislative plan of action, she opted against sharing it during a Wednesday night town hall in Pennsylvania.
The Democratic presidential nominee mostly whiffed on voters’ questions about her top legislative priority and largely recited parts of her campaign trail stump speech during an hour-plus town hall in the Philadelphia suburbs of the must-win battleground states. Asked about expanding the Supreme Court, Harris vaguely endorsed “some kind of reform on the court.”
Harris likely fell short of proving to undecided voters that she could, to use a football analogy, make all the throws — including when she was unable, or unwilling, to point to one professional mistake she has learned from.
Still, when she did deviate from that stump script, she criticized Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, for not being present and for his record as president. She contended that Trump is guilty of repeatedly “fanning the flames of hate.”
The vice president didn’t wait long to pick up where she left off before departing her official residence in Washington, D.C. She delivered impromptu remarks after John Kelly, who was Trump’s White House chief of staff, told the New York Times he once heard his then-boss pine for military generals like those of Adolf Hitler.
“The American people deserve to have a president who encourages healthy debate [and] works across the aisle,” Harris said Wednesday night, “but also maintains certain standards about how we think about the role and the responsibility. And certainly not comparing oneself in a clearly admiring way to Hitler.”
Harris made the remarks in Chester Township, located in Delaware County, just outside Philadelphia. President Joe Biden easily won the county in 2020, netting 62.9 percent of the vote to Trump’s 36.1 percent. Hillary Clinton also cruised there in 2016, winning 59.6 percent to Trump’s 37.2 percent.
But statewide, the picture is much different: Harris and Trump are in a dead heat in the must-win commonwealth, according to multiple recent polls. Some polling conducted in recent weeks showed a slight shift toward Trump, with both FiveThirtyEight’s national and RealClearPolitics’ battleground state metrics showing a collective shift toward Trump — but well within most polls’ margins of error. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales has Pennsylvania rated in the Toss-up column.
Here are four takeaways after Harris took questions from undecided voters and CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Trump a fascist?
Asked by Cooper if she believes Trump is a fascist, as Kelly has said, the vice president replied without hesitation: “Yes, I do.”
Earlier in the day, Harris said “he wants a military who will be loyal to him personally, one that will obey his orders even when he tells them to break the law or abandon their oath to the Constitution of the United States.”
“Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable, and in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrail against his propensities and his actions,” she said.
Trump’s camp soon responded, with communications director Steven Cheung describing the vice president as “a stone-cold loser who is increasingly desperate because she is flailing, and her campaign is in shambles,” adding: “That is why she continues to peddle outright lies and falsehoods that are easily disproven.”
Harris didn’t let up Wednesday evening, saying she believed Kelly was “putting out a 911 call to the American people,” and saying Trump “has contempt for the Constitution of the United States.”
Capitol stumble
Harris noticeably struggled when a political science professor in the audience named Carol asked what one piece of legislation she would prioritize, if elected, if she could only push one through Congress.
However, Harris did not mention her proposed middle-class tax cuts, nor her proposals for federal assistance for small businesses, nor Medicare proposals, nor other parts of her plan. Her proposal for first-time homebuyer help only got a passing mention.
Like at other times during the town hall and some of her recent television interviews, Harris’ answers veered into sections of her stump speech, almost word-for-word.
She did vow to “work across the aisle” on a “number” of issues, including attempting to restore federal abortion access rights. During a Tuesday night interview with NBC News, she said she would not consider any concessions Republican lawmakers might demand on any abortion legislation.
But when Cooper asked about lacking the necessary votes in the House on any abortion measure, Harris spoke of a need to “look at the filibuster.” That’s the current Senate rule that effectively requires 60 votes to pass legislation in that chamber.
Cooper also noted that Harris had called Trump’s southern border wall “stupid,” but pointed out that she had supported a Senate immigration package — nixed at Trump’s behest by GOP senators — that would have given $650 million to wall construction. Harris has been a full-throated supporter of that Senate package, but never committed Wednesday night to being pro-wall, though that was a concession White House officials and Democratic senators gave up in negotiating the package she says she would sign as president to win other provisions.
Fog of war
Facing a potential revolt from Arab American voters in Michigan and other states over the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza, Harris did not lay out a new blueprint for ending the fighting.
She did offer the bloc a rhetorical olive branch, saying “far too many innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed,” and calling the tens of thousands who have died in Gaza “unconscionable.”
Harris said her goals would be to “end this war” and “bring the [Israeli] hostages home,” then “work toward a two-state solution.”
But she did not say she would be tougher on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than has Biden. Analysts have questioned how much sway — if any — the current administration has over Netanyahu.
Meantime, at an event earlier Wednesday in Georgia, Trump said Netanyahu has called him multiple lines this week alone — and contended that the Israeli leader has not been listening to Biden.
What the frack?
Harris has taken flack from Republicans over fracking, which is a major source of jobs and economic fuel in Pennsylvania.
She repeated her shifted pledge, if elected, to not try banning the extraction method. As a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, she was opposed to fracking.
But the why was missing, as she did not clearly explain her shift on the issue. She merely said she still wants to pursue her proposed investments in a “clean energy future” and “not ban fracking.”
Some other prominent Democratic officials, like Connecticut Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, have said their reversal on the issue was due to technology advancements that have made fracking cleaner.
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