A senior Harris campaign adviser confirmed that Vice President Kamala Harris was loyal to President Joe Biden and didn’t want to distance herself from his policies on the campaign trail.
“She wasn’t willing to, you know, change that precedent for whoever the future president-vice presidential partnership would be because it would mean a whole, you know, different set of problems as if we don’t have enough problems in our democracy right now,” said Stephanie Cutter, a Harris-Walz campaign senior adviser, on Pod Save America. “So unless we were willing to say, you know, Biden said green, and she said blue on any particular issue, we’re never really going to satisfy that.”
Vice presidents do not have a history of breaking with their presidents, with a notable exception being when former Vice President Mike Pence refused to honor President-elect Donald Trump’s requests not to certify the election. However, Pence also largely refused to be critical of Trump and his past policies on any other occasion. While he did not endorse Trump for president, Pence has frequently said he is “incredibly proud of the record of the Trump-Pence administration.”
When appearing on The View, Harris told the panel of hosts that nothing came to mind when she was asked what she would change about the Biden administration. She was later questioned about her answer on NBC News.
“I mean, to be very candid with you, including Mike Pence, vice presidents are not critical of their presidents. I think that really, actually, in terms of the tradition of it, and also just going forward, it does not make for a productive and important relationship,” Harris said.
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Instead of criticizing certain actions Biden has taken, Harris talked mostly of her experience as attorney general of California rather than sharing how she would be a continuation of the current administration.
“So our focus was, let’s look to the future. Let’s describe her and her approach to things. Let’s use policies, future-looking policies, to demonstrate that difference,” Cutter said. “But in the end, you know, we’ve all seen the data. It’s … too many people thought that you’d be a continuation. Which on the economy was, you know, the incumbent killer.”