WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — President Joe Biden has listened to calls from within his own party to bow out of the 2024 presidential race and thrown his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democrats’ best option to beat Donald Trump in November.
Harris joined the Biden ticket in August 2020 after a contentious primary season during which she said Biden made “very hurtful” comments about his past work with segregationist senators and slammed his opposition to busing as schools began to integrate in the 1970s.
The two, however, returned to a warm relationship as president and vice president.
Following the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, Harris became a vocal defender of abortion rights. She toured a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota that provides abortion services. It was the first time in U.S. history, according to the White House, that a president or vice president had visited a clinic that provides abortion services.
Also in March, Biden tapped Harris to lead a White House effort to tackle the migration challenge at the U.S. southern border and work with Central American nations to address root causes of the problem.
“When she speaks, she speaks for me,” Biden said at the time, noting her past work as California’s attorney general makes her specially equipped to lead the administration’s response.
Here’s where Kamala Harris stands on top-line issues, during her time as U.S. senator, California attorney general and vice president. You can also read similar policy breakdowns for former President Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Policing and gun reform
Harris took a tough stand on policing in the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police. She co-sponsored legislation in the Senate that would’ve banned police from using chokeholds and no-knock warrants, set a national use-of-force standard and created a national police misconduct registry, among other things. It would have also reformed the qualified immunity system that shields officers from liability.
The list in the legislation included practices Harris did not vocally fight to reform while leading California’s Department of Justice. And while she now wants independent investigations of police shootings, she didn’t support a 2015 California bill that would have required her office to take on such cases.
In June, as vice president, Harris said that more needed to be done at the federal level to prevent gun violence during a campaign stop in Maryland.
Harris, after high-profile shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, in 2022, called for a ban on assault-style weapons.
Crime
Harris in April hosted reality television star Kim Kardashian at the White House to discuss criminal justice reform, after the Biden administration granted clemency to people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses.
The U.S. imprisons more people than any other country. About 1 in 5 of those 1.9 million people are behind bars for a drug-related offense. Black and Latino people are disproportionately incarcerated, and drug law reform has the broadest support among young voters. Black, Latino and young voters tend to favor Democrats.
“Everybody makes mistakes, and for some that might rise to the level of being a crime,” Harris said at the White House. “But is it not the sign of a civil society that we allow people a way to earn their way back and give them the support and the resources they need to do that?”
Harris’ record as California attorney general, however, drew the ire of many progressives during her 2020 bid for the presidency.
During her seven years as a district attorney, and then six as attorney general, she defended the cash bail system in a pair of federal court cases, shifting course only weeks before she entered the Senate.
As a presidential candidate in 2020, she pledged a wholesale overhaul of the country’s criminal justice system, arguing for marijuana legalization, bail reform and a moratorium on the death penalty.
Immigration and the border
Among Republicans, Harris has the ironic moniker of “border czar,” owing to her work wherein she oversaw diplomacy with Mexico and the Northern Triangle as a means of addressing “root causes” of migration.
Biden gave her the responsibility of manning everything immigration along the southern border in 2021, with her roles, according to the White House at the time, to stem the arrival of “irregular migrants.”
As recently as this week at the Republican National Convention, Republicans heavily criticized the Biden-Harris approach to the border, a hot-button issue this election cycle.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, migrant crossings into the US from Mexico hit record highs at the end of 2023.
Close to 250,000 crossed during December 2023, surpassing the previous high of 224,000 encounters in May 2022, also under the Biden-Harris watch.
Harris announced in March that $5.2 billion in pledges from private companies had been made to prop up Central American communities in an effort to deter illegal entry to the U.S. under her guidance.
“The problems, of course, did not occur overnight, and the solutions will not be achieved overnight,” Harris said of the border at the time.
Abortion
Harris is aligned with Biden in her view on abortion, going as far as saying last month “everything is at stake” regarding women’s reproductive rights.
The vice president is in favor of ensuring all American women have access to legal abortions.
“Every person of whatever gender should understand that, if such a fundamental freedom such as the right to make decisions about your own body can be taken, be aware of what other freedoms may be at stake,” Harris said in a joint MSNBC interview with Hadley Duvall, an abortion rights advocate from Kentucky who was raped by her stepfather as a child.
Last month, Harris falsely wrote on X that Donald Trump would ban abortion nationwide. She then added: “President Joe Biden and I will do everything in our power to stop him and restore women’s reproductive freedom.”
Harris also visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota in March, describing the banning or heavy restriction of abortions as “immoral.”
“How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need,” Harris said at the time. “We have to be a nation that trusts women.”
Economy and inflation
Harris has spoken positively about the Biden administration’s economic impact, including during a May White House event.
“Because of the Inflation Reduction Act — the infrastructure act — we are dropping trillions of dollars on the streets of America right now to build back up our roads and our bridges, our sidewalks, to invest in a clean energy economy, to deal with the climate crisis in a way that is about building up adaptation and resilience,” Harris said.
That same month, she also touched on a desire for all Americans to fiscally succeed.
“I believe that America’s economy is powered by the ambition and aspiration of our people … to innovate, to create and to prosper; therefore, to grow our economy, we must invest in that ambition and those aspirations,” Harris said at a Detroit event.
“I believe every person in our country then must have access to the opportunity to compete to succeed and to thrive.”
During her time as a senator, Harris tried to get a bill passed that would have made tax credits up to $6,000 available for low- to middle-income households.
Harris has also been a strong proponent of forgiving student debt, spearheading the Biden administration’s move to abolish debt for several hundred thousand students at Corinthian Colleges.
In 2017, she co-sponsored Bernie Sanders’ proposal for free college for middle-class students at four-year public schools and all who attended two-year institutions.
War in Ukraine
Last month, Harris announced the U.S. would donate over $1.5 billion to Ukraine, with the funds coming from the State Department and USAID.
The financial assistance is intended to repair infrastructure and aid in security, energy and refugee assistance.
Harris has been in lockstep with Biden with regard to helping Ukraine amid its war with Russia.
During the June summit regarding peace in Ukraine, Harris spoke about America’s commitment to the Eastern European nation.
“I am here today to stand with Ukraine and the leaders from around the world in support of a just and lasting peace,” Harris said.
“As we look forward to that peace and work toward that, the United States is committed to helping Ukraine rebuild.”
After meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February, Harris expressed her belief that the U.S. must be of assistance.
“It is in the strategic interest of the United States to continue our support,” Harris said. “International rules and norms are on the line, including the fundamental principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
