Senior advisers to Kamala Harris’s campaign joined the liberal podcast Pod Save America this week to offer their takes on why their candidate suffered a crushing defeat this election—and seemed to have no real humility about where they went wrong.
Stephanie Cutter, one senior aide who sat down for the joint interview, said the vice president was correct in her refusal to set herself apart from President Biden during the presidential race. Cutter said that Harris “felt like she was part of the administration, so why should she look back and cherry-pick some things that she would have done differently, when she was part of it?”
Cutter added that the thinking within the campaign was that if Harris broke with Biden on a specific issue like immigration, stories would come out from administration staffers questioning why she didn’t take different stances in meetings or challenge specific policies to the president.
Eventually, Harris settled on a prevailing campaign strategy that vice presidents almost never break with their presidents, with the exception of Mike Pence with Donald Trump. Cutler and the podcast hosts, former Obama administration staffers Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor, then laughed over a “murder” and “ripping up the Constitution” exception.
Harris Campaign Senior Advisor @StefCutter explains why Kamala Harris was unwilling to differentiate herself more from Joe Biden on policy. In an exclusive interview with PSA, top Harris campaign staff reflect on the 2024 election. Out now wherever you get your podcasts.… pic.twitter.com/iqyjycjEWs
The clip has drawn indignation and vehement criticism on X for being tone-deaf to voters’ concerns.
One commentator pointed out that there was a good example of a vice president who broke with a president besides Trump and Pence: Hubert Humphrey with Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 election, amid Americans’ outrage and exhaustion over the Vietnam War.
There are many policies in which Harris could have and should have broken with the Biden administration during her campaign, whether it was over steadfast U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza or the flawed approach to immigration. But Cutter’s revelation about the Harris campaign’s internal discussions show that there’s also a greater problem: groupthink among Democratic staffers and party leadership. Until the Democrats can express a willingness to dump so-called “conventional wisdom” and aggressively address the issues voters care about, they won’t be able to win again. The hosts of Pod Save America don’t seem to be getting it.
Democrats forgot to read the fine print on a bill and spoon-fed a huge victory to Republicans who want to kill the IRS.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the IRS’s tax enforcement fund, which allowed the IRS to better audit corporations and the wealthiest households, is now $20 billion in the red—leaving the fund’s future up in the air.
In 2022, when Democrats had a trifecta hold over the government, they put $80 billion toward the IRS, which was supposed to help the agency hire, modernize, and enforce through the next decade. When Republicans took the House back in 2023, they started making cuts to that fund to protect their rich friends and corporate interests, placing a $1.4 billion cut and then another $20 billion cut into deals they made with Biden last year.
This year’s stopgap funding bill—meant to keep the government open through December 20—kept the same $20 billion cut in the text. Congressional Republicans noticed that the Democrats didn’t notice its inclusion and watched silently with glee as yet another massive slash was made to one of the most important agencies we have.
“Our concern right now is that because of this risk to the IRS and the uncertainty of it, the IRS is going to potentially have to make dramatic decisions about stopping hiring,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told the Journal. “They are running low on enforcement dollars today.”
Adeyemo also noted that the cuts will force the IRS to do 2,000 fewer large corporate audits over the next five years and 6,000 fewer audits of wealthy individuals.
Donald Trump’s pick for the secretary of the Navy isn’t sitting well even with some MAGA faithful.
Trump announced Tuesday evening that he had selected John Phelan, founder and chairman of the private investment firm Rugger Management, to head the Navy. “A true Champion of American Enterprise and Ingenuity!” Trump wrote in a statement. “John’s intelligence and leadership are unmatched. John holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and is a truly brilliant guy! His incredible knowledge and experience will elevate the lives of the brave Americans who serve our Nation.”
Phelan is a somewhat curious choice, considering he has no military experience. Military Times reports that, if confirmed by the Senate, he “would be the first permanent Navy secretary without........