WASHINGTON — 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.
A Harris campaign official said she “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 steel workers.”
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 steel workers.”
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. In her campaign’s opening weeks, Harris has been careful to balance presenting herself as “a new way forward” while remaining intensely loyal to Biden and the policies he has pushed.
The pair will attend Pittsburgh’s Labor Day parade, 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.
Harris’ team says voters in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania are newly energized since the vice president 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 heads 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. Yet while her delivery may be very different from Biden’s, Harris’ agenda is chock-full of the same issues he has championed: capping the cost of prescription drugs, defending the Affordable Care Act, growing the economy, helping families afford child care and now her psoition 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,” she 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 as a way to fight inflation and use tax cuts and incentives to help ease housing shortages in some parts of the country, but has offered relatively few specifics on major policies as she continues to support Biden administration plans 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 for office. 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.
The 81-year-old president stepped aside in July following a disastrous debate performance with Trump and a growing chorus within his own party for him to make room for a new generation. Harris and Trump will debate on Sept. 10.
“He cares so deeply about the American people. He is so smart and — and loyal to the American people. And 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,” she said in last week’s interview.
She added of Trump: “By contrast, the former president has none of that.”
Harris said during the CNN interview that serving with Biden was “one of the greatest honors of my career,” and she recounted the moment he called to tell her he was stepping down.
“He told me what he had decided to do and … I asked him, ‘Are you sure?’ and he said, ‘Yes,’ and that’s how I learned about it.”
The vice president said she didn’t need to ask Biden for his support because “he was very clear that he was going to endorse me.”
Harris 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.”
“We have laws that have to be followed and enforced, that address and deal with people who cross our border illegally, and there should be consequences,” Harris said.
Although Harris 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 early 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 tens of thousands of Israelis to demonstrate in the streets demanding a ceasefire deal.
Harris will join Biden on Monday in the 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.
