In two separate speeches, Harris will deliver her capitalist message as Trump moves further into populism – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Kamala Harris, derided by Donald Trump as a “communist,” is now playing with her credentials as a capitalist.

Attacked by Harris as a rich kid who received $400 million from his father on a “silver platter,” Trump is now leaning on his raw populism.

The two presidential candidates delivered a mixed-race speech Wednesday that shows how they are sharpening their economic messages for voters in swing states. Both are trying to counter criticism while presenting their best arguments to an audience still concerned about the health of the economy.

Vice President Harris will speak at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, where she plans to emphasize a “pragmatic” philosophy while outlining new policies to boost domestic manufacturing, according to a senior campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the upcoming speech. The Democratic candidate’s comments come after she told a posh audience of donors in New York City on Sunday that she would cut “red tape” that hampers growth.

Former President Trump gave a speech in Mint Hill, North Carolina, arguing that the economy was weak despite declining inflation and a healthy 4.2% unemployment rate. The Republican candidate made his name as a businessman, but he has recently expressed a willingness to take on corporations, proposing to cap credit card interest rates and impose a massive 200% tariff on tractor manufacturer John Deere if it moves jobs to Mexico.

Both candidates are emphasizing the economy at a time when polls show it is among the top issues for voters considering whom to support. A recent AP-NORC poll found that neither candidate has a decisive lead among the public on this issue.

Both are eager to embrace a tax-cutting image and accuse the other of supporting massive tax hikes on the middle class. It’s a significant shift in messaging, as inflation worries have eased somewhat after the Federal Reserve cut its key interest rates last week.

In his speech, in which he insinuated that Iran was involved in the two assassination attempts on him, Trump defended tariffs on a group of furniture makers as a way to protect their jobs.

“If I hadn’t done what I did, this building would be closed, empty, and without jobs,” Trump said. The former president said that a number of “Wall Street geniuses” called him asking why he only promised to cut corporate taxes for companies that make their goods in the United States and he said he told them, “I did that.”

Trump said the corporate tax rate would drop from 21% to 15% for companies that make their products domestically. He said his support for tariffs makes him an international target, saying, “This is why people in countries want to kill me. They don’t like me.”

Billionaire Mark Cuban said business leaders like him support Harris because she has taken considered positions that companies can understand, even if they have a different perspective.

“I want a president who will go into the details of things and have a policy team that understands all the implications of what has been proposed,” Cuban said Tuesday during a call with reporters set up by Harris’ campaign.

Harris’ campaign’s efforts to show its support for business overlap with Trump’s offering of populist ideas. In addition to not wanting to tax tips, Social Security or overtime, he wants to cap credit card interest at 10 percent and create low-tax zones on federal lands to lure employers. Trump also wants to eliminate the cap on state and local tax deductions that he signed into the tax code in 2017 when he was president.

Both candidates see an opportunity to destroy each other’s tax ideas. Trump recently called Harris the “tax queen.” She wants to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% and also tax the unrealized capital gains of people with assets of more than $100 million. She would use the proceeds from this and other policies to support middle-class tax cuts that expire after 2025 and provide new tax breaks for parents and business owners. Many of her policies build on ideas initially proposed by President Joe Biden.

Trump claims her tax hikes will eventually reach the middle class.

“She’s coming for your money,” he told an audience Monday. “She’s coming for your pensions, and she’s coming for your savings.”

Harris has shown that two people can play that game. She has called his call for tariffs a “national sales tax” because it could raise the cost of coffee, clothing, electronics, cars and almost anything else that is imported or relies on imported parts. Her campaign likes to cite an analysis by Brendan Duke of the Center for American Progress, who estimated that a 20% universal tariff would cost the average family nearly $4,000 a year. For middle-income taxpayers, that amount would effectively raise their total federal taxes by 50%, according to calculations based on Treasury Department data.

During a speech in Georgia on Tuesday, Trump praised the word “tariff,” calling it “one of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.” He said it would raise hundreds of billions in tax revenue and not cause inflation.

Most economic analysis says broad tariffs would worsen inflation. Investment bank Goldman Sachs suggested that tariffs, accompanied by a crackdown on immigrants in the United States, would hurt growth.

Harris has made promoting the middle class a top priority, often speaking of her own middle-class background to show that her ideas come from a personal journey.

But at an event in New York City on Sunday, she also made a plea for companies to have less drama in their dealings with government.

“We will create a stable business environment with consistent and transparent rules of the road,” Harris said. “We will invest in semiconductors, clean energy and other industries of the future. And we will cut unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy, all of which will create jobs, spur broad economic growth and solidify America’s leadership around the world.”

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