Washington, D.C. – In case you missed it, Club for Growth Action President David McIntosh joined Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria to discuss the impact of Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic Presidential ticket, how Harris flip-flopping on key issues is turning her into the modern John Kerry, and the looming problems the United States faces as the national debt surpasses $35 trillion.
Click here to watch the full interview from Fox Business.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Maria Bartiromo: Of course we know that Trump is focused on extending the tax cuts, taking down inflation by bringing down the cost of energy and tapping into America’s energy capacity. Kamala Harris however has still not released any economic plans or economic agenda. We can’t use her past positions because her campaign is now flip-flopping on fracking, on healthcare, and on the border claiming that she may not seek a ban on fracking. We also got the first flip-flop from Harris’ running mate Tim Walz yesterday, backtracking on a 2010 statement that he would support increasing the retirement age and adjusting the cap on social security withholdings. A new Marquette poll shows voters still trust Trump more economically: 49% say Trump would be better for the economy compared to Harris’ 37% in that same category. Jining me now is the Club for Growth (Action’s) President David McIntosh. David, great to see you and thank you so much for being here. We’re trying to understand the difference in these policy decisions and policy positions from President Trump to Vice President Harris. Your thoughts?
David McIntosh: What’s happening is the Harris campaign is caught between a rock and a hard place. If they continue with the record that Biden has of terrible economic policies that have led to inflation, bad economy, very bad policies that have hurt the average American over and over again. Or they can flip-flop and move to some new ground that the polls say would be more popular. But then what you’re gonna get is another John Kerry moment where essentially Kamala Harris says; “I was for it before I was against it.” And that just reinforces that she’s a weak leader. Her biggest problem is that the election is a referendum on whether to continue the Biden/Harris Administration and she’s the weaker of the two.
Bartiromo: See that’s what I’m trying to understand because it is the campaign who is putting out all of these like new questions about her positions in the past. I haven’t actually heard Kamala Harris say ‘I’m not going to seek a ban on fracking’, I haven’t heard her say that. But her campaign, now that everyone is going back to what she said a couple of years ago, that she told CNN with very adamant conviction that there’s no question I’m going to ban fracking. Now her campaign is saying ‘No no no, she won’t seek a ban on fracking.’ So I don’t know if they’re just putting out things to confuse everyone or if in fact she has got religion on fracking. I don’t know.
McIntosh: We don’t either. The thing is, the inside story here in Washington is, that to get the nomination, Kamala wholesale took the Biden campaign committee with her. And they’re repeating the strategy of 2020 of keep her out of the limelight, don’t let her talk, that’s what they did to Joe Biden where he stayed in his basement. And they’re continuing the strategy of ‘go hard left’ when they picked Tim Walz and they’re trying to have it both ways by floating ‘well we won’t be as radical as we used to be.’ That’s not going to sell to the American people. They want to see what this Kamala Harris believes in, can she be a strong leader, will that actually help us get out of this economic mess that Joe Biden and she has created.
Bartiromo: So you don’t think America is buying it, but how come it’s such a tight race? Do you think this is a honeymoon? Do you think that she’s, you know, stoked enthusiasm within the Democratic Party? What does that mean for the election?
McIntosh: She mainly stokes relief among the Democratic Party where they don’t have to run with Joe Biden. But what we’ve seen over and over again is it’s baked in that this election is a referendum on whether to continue with the Biden/Harris Administration. And they get a bump up, in this case a little bit of a honeymoon with a new person at the top of the ticket, a new Vice President. But then pretty quickly, within a week, it goes back to the mean where President Trump has a 2 or 3 point lead nationally and an even bigger lead in all of the battle ground states., And I saw a couple of polls yesterday that confirm that. I think it was CNN that had one where he is back up by 2-points. So it’s done what its been doing for the past 6 months. It’s gone back to the baked in ‘we don’t like Biden/Harris’, ‘we think Trump is a better leader’. Some people don’t like his personality but they’re ready to bring him because they know the results will be better.
Bartiromo: What’s your take on debt? The national debt soared past $35 trillion for the first time ever. It is set to surpass $56 trillion by 2034 according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Congressional Budget Office’s new report reveals that the deficit hit $1.5 trillion in the first 10 months of the fiscal year 2024. David, you know, President Trump says there is a lot of areas to cut, there’s fat in this government that you can cut, and still keep taxes down. But when does $35 trillion in debt become an emergency?
McIntosh: That’s the ticking timebomb that President Trump was referring to. It becomes an emergency when the rest of the world loses faith in the dollar as the standard currency for world trade. We’re not there yet. People still want the dollar compared to other countries like Japan and Europe, it’s a stronger currency. But if we keep spending the way we are and shifting that deficit around the world, at some point it’s going to break. And unfortunately, Biden has just put his foot on the accelerator with even more debt, more deficit spending, and Republicans have gone along with it for the most part. So what we need is new leadership who will come in and say ‘New sheriff in town, you don’t get to spend everything you used to spend.’ We’re gonna keep things that people need, like he promised he would make sure Social Security would stay intact, but we’re not gonna waste a lot of money on the big government programs that Washington just loves to spend on.
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