MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle defends Harris' vague policy answers
Vice President Kamala Harris addresses tariffs, inflation, immigration policies and more on MSNBC.
MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle showered Vice President Kamala Harris with praise and repeatedly shrugged off her non-answers following their sit-down.
Appearing on "Deadline: White House," Ruhle said that while Harris "didn't want to go deep" on her plans with tariffs, she claimed the VP had a "serious plan as it relates to manufacturing."
"If you think about the big economic legislation that has been passed in the last four years, we have actually seen billions of dollars being put to work, thousands of jobs being created, much of which are in red states and red counties, bringing manufacturing jobs back," Ruhle told her MSNBC colleague Nicolle Wallace.
"Now, they're not the old manufacturing jobs. They are new manufacturing and this friction, this period of change, doesn't just happen overnight, right? So Donald Trump, who really appealed to that blue collar, that union worker in 2016 kind of on a guttural, emotional level, we've seen the Biden administration appeal to that base on a policy level, but she knows she's not getting those votes overnight," Ruhle continued.
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MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle called out Vice President Kamala Harris for not answering the question about how she'll be able to fund her economic proposals with a divided Congress. (Screenshot/MSNBC)
Ruhle, who also serves as a business analyst for NBC News, said Harris' "challenge" is to message to voters that her economic policies "serve everyone," insisting that the vice president wants to build "an inclusive economy."
"What I didn't hear from her was divisive language," Ruhle told Wallace. "Imagine if I was sitting against Donald Trump, imagine the language he would be using, please! And just the fact that we were talking about collaborative inclusivity — I don't know. Vote for her or don't vote for her, but isn't it great to just have a positive conversation right now?"
The MSNBC host did go on to admit that Harris didn't answer a question about how she would get the funding for her ambitious economic agenda without Congress, but quickly defended her by saying Trump would "balloon" the deficit "significantly bigger than Vice President Harris will."
MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle interviews Vice President Kamala Harris. (Screenshot/MSNBC)
Ruhle later appeared on "All In with Chris Hayes," which aired the interview in full.
She further shrugged off Harris' non-answers, referring to an exchange she had about the Democrat's criticisms of Trump's tariff proposals while also implementing their own tariffs under the Biden administration.
"It's complicated, right?" Ruhle exclaimed. "We're a country of 330 million people, our economy is complicated. In the same way — is the economy good or bad? It totally depends! So tariffs, if used in the right places, can work. And one could watch that and say, 'Well, she didn't give a clear, direct answer.' That's okay, because we are not talking about clear or direct issues."
Ruhle rejected critics who panned Harris' price control plan as being "socialist," turning to Trump's proposal of capping interest rates for credit card companies.
"When I call, like, ride or die capitalists about this. They're like, ‘Oh, it’s nonsense. He's just talk and talk.' But when she says anything that even sniffs like it, they're like, ‘See, she’s a socialist nutball.' So it's completely crazy," Ruhle complained.
MSNBC HOST DEFENDS HARRIS AVOIDING POLICY QUESTIONS: SHE'S ‘NOT RUNNING FOR PERFECT’
MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle. (Screenshot/MSNBC)
Hayes complimented Harris as being "quite adept" on the issues and said it would benefit her campaign by doing more such media interviews, something Ruhle agreed with "100%."
"Because what's crazy is that Donald Trump gets so much credit and has for the last nine years of the fact that, you know, people have access to him and he says what he thinks, and he just lets it rip, but much of what he says either doesn't make sense or it's not true. She actually was perfectly reasonable," Ruhle said.
"And listen, there's some things she's not giving you a direct answer on because she's a politician," she continued. "But I agree with you that getting a chance to speak to her, getting the American people to hear from her more. What do you do with the fact, if you're her campaign, when people hear over and over, 'I don't really know what her policies are,' and they can say, ‘Well, look, we have this book, and it has 82 pages.’ I guarantee there are people who watched tonight who went, ‘Oh, taxes only increased if you can make over $400,000?’ because there's all sorts of people like ‘Well, my tax cuts are gonna run out. Maybe my taxes are gonna go up next year.’ They're not really reading the 82-page plan."
Ruhle added, "I mean, she's a great interview! I sat down with her for 25 minutes. You might not have liked all of her answers, but she had one for every single question."
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While Ruhle seemed to suggest that voters learned something new from her interview about Harris' economic policies by citing her intention to raise taxes for anyone making more than $400,000, President Biden touted that same policy proposal as a candidate in 2020, something Harris embraced as the 2024 nominee back in July.
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