‘Not a thing that comes to mind’ for Harris on what she would have done differently from Biden

Kamala Harris has had to grapple with how much daylight to put between her and President Joe Biden — something that came up again during her high-profile appearance on "The View" on Tuesday.

Asked whether there is anything she would have done differently than Biden over the past four years, Harris demurred.

“There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of — and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact,” she said, going on to talk about the administration’s work capping the cost of insulin at $35 for Medicare recipients.

She appeared to backtrack on that answer later in the show.

“You asked me what is the difference between Joe Biden and me — that will be one of the differences. I’m going to have a Republican in my Cabinet,” she said, reiterating a pledge she made during a CNN interview in August.

How much to lean into or away from her role in the Biden administration is an issue that has dogged Harris since she ascended to the top of the ticket this summer. Her Tuesday comments underscore the challenge that has followed her on the trail as she both tries to take credit for the administration’s successes, like on drug prices, while distancing herself from Biden’s unpopularity.

Privately, campaign aides granted anonymity to discuss her thinking say Harris has resisted overtly leaning into her differences with Biden on the campaign trail because of her sense of loyalty to him.

Still, she has spent the last several months demonstrating to voters that she wouldn’t just be Biden 2.0, including by proposing a lower increase on capital gains taxes than the one the president is pushing. And the campaign has been thoughtful about how it deploys Biden, with Harris appearing alongside Biden at a Labor Day campaign stop in Pennsylvania, a state where Biden retains appeal among working-class voters.

The Trump campaign quickly seized on Harris’ Tuesday comments, blasting them out over email while Donald Trump, Jr. used them to cast doubt on whether she is a “change agent” on the social media platform X. The former president has attempted to closely tie Harris to Biden and his record since she entered the race, including during their September debate in which he said that Harris “is Biden.”

“Clearly, I am not Joe Biden,” Harris said during the debate. “And I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country.”

Polling shows that message might just be getting across to voters. A new New York Times-Siena College poll released Tuesday found that 46 percent of voters viewed Harris as the candidate representing change in the election, compared with 44 percent for Trump. That represented a reversal from previous polls, which had shown Trump as the change candidate.

Her interview with “The View” comes as part of a marathon day of media appearances. She will appear later Tuesday on SiriusXM’s “The Howard Stern Show” and CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”