By Colleen Long and Will Weissert | Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris plans to use Monday’s joint campaign appearance in the industrial city of Pittsburgh with President Joe Biden to say that U.S. Steel should remain domestically owned — coinciding with the White House’s earlier opposition to the company’s planned sale to Nippon Steel of Japan.
Harris “is expected to say that U.S. Steel should remain domestically owned and operated and stress her commitment to always have the backs of American steelworkers,” her campaign says.
That’s similar to Biden, who said in March that he opposed U.S. Steel’s would-be sale to Nippon in order to better “maintain strong American steel companies powered by American steelworkers.” But it still constitutes a major policy position for the vice president, who has offered relatively few of them since Biden abandoned his reelection bid and endorsed Harris in July.
Harris has since been careful to balance presenting herself as “a new way forward” while remaining intensely loyal to Biden and the policies he has pushed. Her delivery is very different — and in some cases, she’s pushed to move faster than Biden’s administration — but the overall goal of expanding government programs to buoy the middle class is the same.
Biden and Harris attending Pittsburgh’s Labor Day parade marks the first time they have both spoken at a campaign event together since the surprising election shakeup that provided a fresh jolt of Democratic enthusiasm to the 2024 election. The 81-year-old Biden has spent most of his lengthy political career forging close ties with organized labor but the White House said that the president has asked to introduce Harris at the joint appearance — rather than the usual other way around – because he planned to specifically highlight her record of helping deliver for union workers.
Harris’ team says voters in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania are newly energized since she moved to the top of the ticket six weeks ago, with tens of thousands of new volunteers signed up to canvass for her and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee.
Harris’ and Biden’s appearance at the parade, one of the largest such gatherings in the country, is part of a battleground state blitz with just over two months until Election Day. Harris first headed to Detroit Monday for a campaign event before meeting Biden in Pennsylvania.
Harris, 59, has sought to appeal to voters by positioning herself as a break from poisonous politics, rejecting the acerbic rhetoric of her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, while looking to move beyond the Biden era as well. Harris events feel very different from Biden’s, which usually featured small crowds, but the vice president’s agenda is chock-full of the same issues he’s championed: capping the cost of prescription drugs, defending the Affordable Care Act, growing the economy, helping families afford child care — and now her position on U.S. Steel.
“We fight for a future where we build what I call an opportunity economy so that every American has the opportunity to own a home, start a business and to build wealth and intergenerational wealth,” Harris said at a recent rally, echoing Biden’s calls to grow the economy “from the bottom out and the middle up.”
Harris has promised to work to lower grocery store costs to help fight inflation. She’s also moved faster than Biden in some cases, calling for using tax cuts and incentives to encourage home ownership and end federal taxes on tips for service industry employees. But she’s also offered relatively few specifics on major policies, instead continuing to side with Biden on top issues.
The vice president briefly appeared on stage with Biden after the president delivered his remarks on the opening night of last month’s Democratic National Convention, but the two haven’t shared a microphone at a political event since Biden himself was running against Trump. At that time, the campaign was using Harris mostly as its chief spokeswoman for abortion rights, an issue they believe can help them win in November as restrictions grow and health care worsens for women following the fall of Roe v. Wade.
They both have appeared at official events and met together at the White House since the ticket-swap.
For more than 3 1/2 years, Harris has been one of Biden’s chief validators. Now the tables are turned, as Harris looks to lean on Biden — a native of Scranton, Pennsylvania — to help win the potentially decisive state. Biden, for his part, has laid low since ending his reelection bid. He was last at the White House on Aug. 19 and has since been vacationing in Southern California and Delaware.
But even as she’s taken on the mantle of leading the Democratic Party, Harris has stood steadfastly at Biden’s side. In her first sit-down interview of her candidacy, Harris delivered an impassioned defense of Biden’s record and ability to do the job, even despite the events of the past two months that ended with her running for the Oval Office and Biden a lame duck.
“I have spent hours upon hours with him, be it in the Oval Office or the Situation Room. He has the intelligence, the commitment, and the judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president,” Harris said.
She added of Trump: “The former president has none of that.”
Harris said during last week’s CNN interview that serving with Biden was “one of the greatest honors of my career.”
The vice president has also defended the administration’s record on the southern border and immigration, one of the administration’s most persistent and vexing problems. She notes that she was tasked with trying to address the “root causes” in other countries that were driving the border crossings, though Republicans have tagged her as the “border czar.”
Although the vice president has appeared more forceful in speaking about the plight of civilians in Gaza, as Israel’s war against Hamas there nears the 11th-month mark, the vice president has also endorsed Biden’s efforts to arm Israel and bring about a hostage deal and ceasefire.
Israel said Sunday that it had recovered the bodies of six hostages captured during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that ignited the Gaza war, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. The revelation prompted thousands of Israelis to demonstrate in the streets, demanding a ceasefire deal.
Before they appeared together in Pittsburgh, Harris also joined Biden in the White House’s Situation Room to meet with the U.S. hostage deal negotiating team to discuss their continuing efforts on a deal that would secure the release of the remaining hostages.
