Vice President Kamala Harris remained silent during her interview on MSNBC when asked about how she would fund her economic plans.
The moment came early in an interview, when Harris deflected slow questions like “Can we trust you?”
Interviewer Stephanie Ruhle asked Harris, who was giving her first TV interview since being nominated by her party, how she would fund her economic plans.
“If you can’t raise corporate taxes or the Republican Party gets control of the Senate, where are you going to get the money to do it?” her interviewer asked, after Harris outlined some of her plans, such as a $6,000 tax break for young couples or grants for new small businesses.
Republicans have a good chance of capturing the narrow Democratic majority as a Democratic-held seat in Montana becomes increasingly vulnerable.
“But we’re going to have to raise corporate taxes,” Harris told her after a moment of silence.
“And we’re going to have to increase — we’re going to have to make sure that the biggest corporations and the billionaires pay their fair share. That’s the thing,” Harris said.
“We’re going to have to raise corporate taxes,” Vice President Kamala Harris said when asked how she would pay for her economic plans
She failed to provide details of her plan, which includes a new 25 percent minimum tax on people with assets over $100 million, an increase in the capital gains tax and a rise in the corporate tax rate to 28 percent.
Ruhle herself said after the interview that she ‘doesn’t answer the question: Where is she going to get the money from?’
“She said we should just do it. And that’s great and that’s a campaign promise,” she added.
The moment came in an interview in which Harris criticized Trump for wanting to extend the 2017 tax cuts.
“The fact is that Donald Trump has a history of taking very good care of very wealthy people, and I’m not mad at people who are wealthy, but they should pay their fair share,” Harris said.
Harris said her plan would cut taxes for 100 million Americans, protecting people who earn less than $400,000 a year.
She talked about building an economy where people “have the opportunity to buy a home, start a business, and take a nice vacation every now and then.”
She also responded to Trump’s claims that she had never worked at McDonald’s by revealing that she had recited one of the fast food chain’s famous jingles.
But the candidate managed to avoid major missteps after coming under pressure from Republicans and the media to give more interviews.
Ruhle also asked Harris how she could raise taxes on corporations without sending them overseas, where taxes were cheaper.
“I work with CEOs a lot and I’ve spent a lot of time with them, and I can tell you that the leaders of companies that are actually part of the engine of the American economy agree that people should pay their fair share,” she said.
Harris largely avoided stumbling in a relatively safe environment on a day when she campaigned in Pennsylvania, where the election still hangs in the balance, while Trump took her to task in North Carolina.
Her first interview since her rise, on CNN, again presented stumbling blocks.
She is in a neck-and-neck race with Donald Trump, who gave a speech in Georgia this week about his economic plans, promising to “take other countries’ jobs” and again attacking his rivals.
President Biden’s budget includes a tax increase on corporations and high-income earners that is estimated to raise $5 trillion.