Harris previews economic, immigration policies on west coast swing
Plus: US officials slam the latest Israeli airstrike, new polling favors Harris over Trump and GOP state AGs sue Biden administration to block DACA health care expansion.
👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome back to Once Upon a Hill. I hope you had a fantastic weekend. The general election is in 85 days, and the Democratic National Convention is in seven days. I’ll be in Chicago next week covering the DNC, where Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) will formally accept their party’s nomination.
I’m still feeling proud to be an American after the closing days of the Paris Olympics brought another world-record-setting performance by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone in the 400-meter hurdles and epic second leg on the 4x400 meter relay, a Sha’Carri Richardson-led comeback in the 4x100, a Curry flurry for the ages and a fourth-quarter takeover by my girl A’Ja Wilson as she led Team USA to its eighth straight gold in women’s hoops.
And I know we’re all rooting for American gymnast Jordan Chiles as USA Gymnastics appeals the decision that stripped the 23-year-old of the bronze medal, the first individual Olympic honor she earned in the floor routine final last week.
Now, that Paris is in the books, we can look ahead to the 2028 games in Los Angeles. 🇺🇸
In related news, Vice President Harris showed her pride when she stepped off Air Force Two wearing a jacket with “USA” in red and blue on the back after she returned to Washington following a five-day swing-state tour through the Blue Wall and sun belt.
More on her weekend on the west coast leg of the trip below.
But first, I want to turn your attention to a new governmentwide initiative the White House launched this morning called “Time is Money.” The initiative aims to hold corporations accountable for weakening Americans’ quality of life through excessive paperwork, hold times and other frustrating practices.
Time is Money is an extension of the administration’s work on junk fees, which it describes as the hidden costs and surcharges in everything from travel to banking services that dilute your purchasing power.
Although it’s unlikely Congress will take up any major bills beyond must-pass legislation to keep the government open beyond Election Day and the annual defense authorization bill, I was curious if the administration believed Congress had a role in helping it address some of the consumer frustrations the initiative is designed to solve. I also wondered whether the White House viewed Republicans as legitimate governing partners on the issue given the party’s bias towards empowering corporate interests.
“We’re taking on these unfair corporate practices using every tool we have,” a senior administration official told me. “These are actions that everyone should be able to get behind and we will work with anyone—Democrat or Republican—to do right by Americans.”
As part of the initiative, the Federal Trade Commission has proposed a rule to make it as easy to opt out of subscription or membership as it is to opt in. The Federal Communications Commission is initiating an inquiry into whether to extend similar requirements for cable, internet and phone companies.
The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, FCC and Department of Health and Human Services are taking action to let you press a single button when you want to talk to a customer service agent at banks and telecom and health insurance companies. A new CFPB action would allow consumers to bypass useless chatbots and the Transportation Department recently adopted an automatic refunds rule that requires airlines to pay you back the airfare when your flight is canceled or significantly changed for any reason, and you are not offered, or choose not to accept, alternatives such as rebooking.
The White House also unveiled a new portal where users can submit suggestions on what the administration should do next.
A senior administration official said these regulations can be enforced administratively and do not need congressional approval, but did not detail the penalties companies would face for noncompliance or provide an estimate of how much time or money consumers will save as a result of the actions.
“Essentially, in all of these practices, the companies are delaying services to you, or really trying to make it so difficult for you to cancel the service that they get to hold on to your money longer and longer,” Neera Tanden, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said. “Americans are tired of being played for suckers.”
Tanden said the initiative isn’t about vilifying the corporate class.
“What we’re really trying to do here is instill a consumer practice that ensures that companies across the board are fundamentally reoriented so that the consumer experience is front and center.”
Harris talks immigration, addresses anti-Israel protesters in Arizona
107-degree weather didn’t stop 15,000 supporters from filing into the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale on Friday night to hear from the new Democratic presidential ticket.
Harris addressed immigration, an issue Republicans will intensify their attacks on as Election Day nears. The vice president has the unenviable task of establishing a goldilocks position that’s tough enough to satisfy voters who want stricter enforcement policies at the southern border to discourage unlawful crossings and compassionate enough for voters who feel the mass deportation operation former President Trump has proposed is a bridge too far.
“We know our immigration system is broken and we know what it takes to fix it: comprehensive reform. That includes strong border security and earned pathway to citizenship,” she said. “But Donald Trump does not want to fix the problem. He talks a big game about border security, but he does not walk the walk.”
Hours before the rally, White House senior spokesperson Andrew Bates shared a policy memo to spotlight recent reporting that the “number of migrants in border towns and some big U.S. cities has plunged,” and that “shelter operators attribute the steep drop to President Joe Biden’s June executive action,” with “some reporting drops as high as 60 percent in just the past few months.” He criticized congressional Republicans for blocking the bipartisan border deal crafted by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) earlier this year that would have funded the hiring of more border patrol personnel and asylum officers and fentanyl detection technology to protect the political interests of former President Donald Trump.
Harris was once again interrupted by pro-Palestinian protestors. It was clear from her that the campaign expected the demonstration and fine-tuned its candidate’s response following a similar interruption in Michigan days earlier when the vice president stared down hecklers while warning that their chants of “genocide” in opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza would help elect Trump, who would further embolden Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
“Let me just speak to that for a moment and then I’ll get back to the business at hand,” Harris said. “I have been clear: Now is the time to get a ceasefire deal and get the hostage deal done. And the president and I are working around the clock every day to get that ceasefire deal done and bring the hostages home: So, I respect your voices, bye we are here to now talk about the race in 2024.” (More on the war in Gaza below.)
And as I wrote last week, congressional Democrats continued to embrace Harris’s candidacy on the campaign trail in ways they didn’t Biden’s: Reps. Greg Stanton and Ruben Gallego, who’s running for Senate to replace Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, spoke during the pre-program before Harris’s remarks. Sen. Mark Kelly, Arizona’s other US senator and a finalist to be Harris’s running mate and his wife and gun violence survivor former Rep. Gabby Giffords were also speakers.
Before the rally, Harris and Walz stopped by a local campaign office to thank volunteers who were on hand to make signs for the rally. The vice president and governor invited them to join them in the motorcade to the event. Following the rally, Harris, Walz and his daughter Hope, and Gallego stopped by a local Latino-owned small business to pick up Mexican food after the rally.
“You know what picante is for him?” Harris said, referring to her spice-averse her running mate. “Black pepper.”
Harris teases economic proposals while Nevada Dems knock Trump and Vance
The next afternoon 12,000 people descended upon the Thomas and Mack Center at the University of Nevada Las Vegas people—with an additional 4,000 left in line when local enforcement closed the doors to the event due to people becoming ill while waiting to go through security in the 109-degree heat—to hear from Harris and Walz in person.
Before she departed her hotel, Harris told reporters she would begin to roll out her policy platform this week.
“It’ll be focused on the economy and what we need to do to bring down costs and also strengthen the economy,” she added.
The vice president also pushed back against comments from former President Trump who said he should he thinks he should have influence over the Federal Reserve, the central banking system which views itself as independent of the US government because its policy decisions can be made without approval from the executive or legislative branches.
“I couldn’t disagree more strongly,” Harris said. “The Fed is an independent entity. And as president, I would never interfere in the decisions the Fed makes.”
At the rally, Harris promised to raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers, a proposal former President Trump put forward several weeks ago and accused Harris of stealing.
A Harris campaign official said her proposal would require legislation, which she would push for alongside an increase in the minimum wage.
“As president, she would work with Congress to craft a proposal that comes with an income limit and with strict requirements to prevent hedge fund managers and lawyers from structuring their compensation in ways to try to take advantage of the policy,” the official added.
Harris also focused her remarks on climate change, referencing the extreme heat states like Nevada and Arizona are currently experiencing.
All five Democratic members of Nevada’s congressional delegation—Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez-Masto and Reps. Dina Titus, Susie Lee and Steven Horsford—gave warm-up speeches before Walz and Harris stepped to the podium.
“By the way, I’m one of those ‘miserable, childless cat ladies,’” Titus said, referencing JD Vance’s comments from a 2021 Fox News interview that sparked immediate backlash after former President Trump tapped the Ohio senator to be his running mate last month before she alluded to false viral claims that Vance wrote about having sex with a couch in his memoir. “JD Vance apologized to my cat, but he didn’t apologize to me. You better hide behind that sofa because we’re coming for you.”
Rosen, who’s up for reelection this November in a seat that will likely determine which party controls the Senate, said Harris has the “grit” and “determination” to win the race. She also invoked former President Barack Obama after she criticized Trump and Vance and the attendees booed the Republican candidates: “Don’t boo,” she said. “Vote.”
Cortez Masto accused Trump of intentionally tanking “the strongest bipartisan border security bill we’ve ever had” because he’d prefer to have chaos.
Ahead of the Las Vegas rally, Harris also received two key endorsements on the stops.
The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165, endorsed Harris ahead of the Las Vegas rally for her strong commitment to advancing the Biden administration’s progress on worker empowerment. The endorsement emphasized the Harris-Walz ticket’s plans to address issues like rent control, affordable housing and the fight against corporate greed. And as the largest organization for working women in Nevada, the union said it sees Harris’s potential election as historic and is committed to helping her win in the state. The union, which represents 60,000 workers in Las Vegas and Reno, primarily in the casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip and Downtown Las Vegas, also highlighted her role in helping it secure its best union contract and her engagement with union members over the past six years.
LULAC Adelante PAC—the political arm of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation’s largest and oldest Latino civil rights organization in America—endorsed Harris in its first endorsement of any presidential candidate in its history. The organization said Harris’s candidacy would build on the Biden-Harris legacy that has advanced causes important to the Latino community, such as creating 4.8 million jobs for Latinos (16 million nationwide) and supporting Latino entrepreneurs, expanding healthcare and childcare access for millions of Americans, and taking meaningful steps on immigration reform. Members of the organization’s executive board and leadership joined the Harris-Walz campaign in Nevada to announce the endorsement on Saturday and Harris was scheduled to meet with LULAC members and leaders to hear about the issues that matter most to the Latino community.
Pelosi joins Harris at San Francisco fundraiser
Before Harris returned to Washington on Sunday, she attended a fundraiser with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi, who has been everywhere promoting her new book, The Art of Power, while downplaying her role in the campaign to pressure Biden to drop his reelection bid, praised Harris as a strong leader with underestimated political instincts. She compared the upcoming election to the Olympics, noting that the difference between gold, silver and bronze can come down to seconds.
“Elections are that close,” she said.
Harris highlighted Pelosi’s contributions, praised California leaders, and told the attendees she expected to win the election by focusing on key issues such as gun violence, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights and American democracy.
A Harris campaign spokesperson said close to 700 people RSVP’d to the event and the campaign raised more than $12 million. Reps. Barbara Lee, Jared Huffman and Kevin Mullin attended the fundraiser along with state assemblyman Evan Low and San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit board member Lateefah Simon who are both running for Congress in California.
Harris served as district attorney of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011.
NYT/Sienna poll: Harris up in MI, PA, WI
Three weeks after President Biden dropped his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris, new polling by The New York Times and Sienna College released on Saturday found that the vice president leads former President Trump by four points in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania (50%-46%). Democrats also hold slight leads in Senate races in these states.
President Biden won each of these states against Trump in 2020 while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost each in 2016.
Although voters still trust Trump more on the economy and immigration, Harris is performing better than Joe Biden did in May, particularly with white voters without a college degree, Black voters and young voters. Harris is also viewed favorably in terms of vision, temperament, honesty, and intelligence compared to Trump, though more voters see her as too liberal than they did Biden. Economy, abortion and immigration remain key issues for voters include the economy, abortion, and immigration.
Israel airstrike draws US disapproval
More than 90 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school complex in Gaza on Saturday, according to Gaza health authorities. The Israel Defense Forces said Hamas was using the facility for military operations and attacks on Israel, where more than 6,000 displaced Palestinians were sheltering and some were gathered in prayer as the strike hit.
IDF did not provide an overall death toll for the strike but said the three munitions used in the strike couldn’t cause the amount of reported damage. It said the strike killed 19 Islamic Jihad and Hamas fighters and that its intelligence indicated no women or children were present. According to a recent report from the United Nations human rights office, at least 17 school buildings in Gaza have been targeted in the past month, with at least 163 Palestinians killed in the attacks.
Harris reiterated the administration’s position that Israel has a right to go after Hamas for the October 7 terrorist attacks, it is responsible for avoiding civilian casualties.
She acknowledged that despite this position, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, leading to the protestors demanding the US limit the arms sent to Israel.
“We need to get the hostages out. We need a hostage deal, and we need a ceasefire,” she said, reprising her message from the night before. “And I can’t stress that strongly enough, it needs to get done. The deal needs to get done. It needs to get done now.”
Sean Savett, a spokesperson for the National Security Council said the administration knows Hamas has been using schools as locations to gather and operate out of, but has also said that Israel must take measures to minimize civilian harm.
“We are in touch with our Israeli counterparts, who have said they targeted senior Hamas officials, and we are asking for further details,” he said. “We mourn every Palestinian civilian lost in this conflict, including children, and far too many civilians continue to be killed and wounded. This underscores that urgency of a ceasefire and hostage deal, which we continue to work tirelessly to achieve.”
The strike comes days after President Biden and the leaders of Egypt and Qatar released a joint statement calling for Israel and Hamas to return to the negotiating table this Thursday to close the hostage and ceasefire deal Biden outlined several months ago.
Barak Ravid at Axios reported on Sunday that Hamas won’t take part in the talks.
Biden chills at the beach, goes for a bike ride, warns Iran to keep it cute
President Biden spent the weekend at his home on Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. On Saturday, he spent some time on the beach with First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and his granddaughter Naomi.
President Biden did not respond to questions on Gaza and the Israeli attack as he left the beach and went to church. After service, the president was asked what his message was to Iran, who could launch an attack on Israel in the coming days in retaliation for the killing of a senior Hamas leader in Tehran last week, which it blames Israel for.
“Don’t,” President Biden said.
Biden went cycling on the bike trail near his beach home for about 50 minutes, accompanied by Secret Service agents and wearing a helmet, white polo and dark shorts.
He did not respond to questions from reporters on whether he trusts Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Last but not least
— 15 Republican-led states sued the Biden administration last week over a rule HHS finalized in May to enable 100,000 recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to gain health insurance under the Affordable Care Act beginning in November. The states argue in the suit that the rule, which deems DACA participants “legally present” in the US, violates federal law and encourages unlawful residency and requires higher state spending on public services. (Related: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order on the same day the suit was filed directing state officials to begin tracking the costs to the state of providing medical care to undocumented immigrants.)
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach is leading the suit and is joined by attorneys general in Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia. The HHS rule would allow DACA recipients to apply for coverage through the ACA marketplaces, where they may qualify for financial assistance to help them purchase quality health insurance and four out of five consumers have found a plan for less than $10 a month, with millions saving an average of about $800 a year on their premiums.
— Violent crime decreased in every category in the first half of 2024, according to police chiefs from major cities. This includes homicides, which were down 17
percent after a significant decline from the previous year. Violent crime is at a 50-year low
Biden credited this success to the American Rescue Plan, which provided $15 billion for public safety and crime prevention, and to significant gun violence legislation that expanded background checks and supported red flag laws. (Every congressional Republican voted against the ARP in 2021.)
And while he said Americans are safer now than when he took office but stressed the need to continue these efforts, he called for Congress to fund more police officers and implement further gun safety reforms, including an assault weapons ban.
Do you have questions about the election? Drop me a line at michael@onceuponahill.com or send me a message below to get in touch and I’ll find the answers.