Oct. 8, 2024, 5:36 p.m.
Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at length about abortion access during an interview with Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper. She introduced a plan to expand Medicare to cover at-home health care during an episode of The View on Tuesday morning. When speaking to radio host Howard Stern later that afternoon, she berated former President Trump after it emerged that he reportedly sent COVID-19 test kits to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the height of the pandemic.
“People in America were struggling to get tests and this guy [Trump] is sending them to Russia, to a murderous dictator for his personal use?” Harris said to Stern.
It all fit the theme, as Harris predominantly touted health care during a trio of friendly interviews with hosts who don’t exclusively cover politics. The spotlight on health care suggests that she wants to prioritize this policy topic—especially for those who are less engaged with the daily campaign grind. These discussions coincided with a more probing, wider-ranging conversation with CBS News’ 60 Minutes, which aired Monday, during which reporter Bill Whitaker asked Harris about whether the Biden administration has any sway with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It’s unclear whether the electorate believes health care is a top campaign issue. A New York Times-Siena College poll released Tuesday showed that fewer than 1 percent of likely voters view health care as the top issue this campaign. Yet this policy area appears to hold an outsized role, especially after Trump said at the debate that he had “concepts of a plan” to replace the Affordable Care Act during the pair’s only debate on Sept. 10.
Harris sought to build on this, as she finally started a regular cadence of media interviews this week. When asked during her appearance on The View about the Biden administration’s achievements, the first item she mentioned was how the administration capped the cost of insulin at $35 per month. She spent most of her 45-minute discussion with Cooper on women’s health care, targeting the votes of the roughly 5 million people—most of whom are women—who tune into the podcast each week.
“[Trump] is suggesting that women in their ninth month of pregnancy are electing to have an abortion. Are you kidding?” Harris said to Cooper. “That is so outrageously inaccurate, and it's so insulting, to suggest that would be happening and that women would be doing that.”
Harris’s media appearances this week represent a sharp turn for her short-term campaign. Until this weekend, she has largely shied away from interviews. She took over a month to sit down with any mainstream outlet after announcing her run for president. Her decision to appear with non-traditional media hosts reflects a tactic that Trump has used to court young men.
Harris isn’t the only one stepping out into the public sphere: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has also increased his media presence. He appeared on his first Sunday politics show over the weekend since he became Harris’s running mate, went on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday, and held an interview with 60 Minutes.
Harris’s efforts to tout abortion access, as she did in her Call Her Daddy interview, look to be pertinent with voters. The Times poll found 14 percent labeled it their top election priority this year, second only to the economy at 28 percent.
The Harris campaign has already been laying the groundwork for a heavy dose of messaging related to health care. In response to a Gallup poll that found two-thirds of voters believe there isn’t enough attention on health care during this campaign, the vice president’s team invested seven figures in ads focused on health care last week, using clips from the debate showing Trump's whiff when he was asked to say how he planned to replace Obamacare. The campaign released an adjacent ad featuring a testimonial from a patient with diabetes on the importance of the new insulin price cap.
“Americans understand that their lives have gotten too expensive and, on every single issue, including health care, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have sought to bring down their costs,” Democratic strategist Cole Leiter told National Journal. “There is no single issue where Democrats have brought down costs more aggressively than health care.”
This wouldn’t be the first time that Democrats have wielded health care-related topics as a cudgel against Trump. In 2018, the party hammered the then-president over his efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, helping Democrats flip 41 House seats and retake the lower chamber. In the last presidential election, President Biden berated Trump for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, Democrats relentlessly dogged the former president for helping to overturn Roe v. Wade, allowing them to retain the Senate and lose a net of just nine seats in the House.
With just four weeks to go until Election Day this year, Harris hopes that this focus on health care produces another successful election for Democrats.
“I took care of my mother when she was sick—she was diagnosed with cancer,” Harris told The View while detailing her plan for at-home health care. “It is a personal experience for me as well as something I care deeply about.”
Harris’s media tour continues this week. She is taping an interview on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert Tuesday evening before she holds a town hall with Univision in Las Vegas on Thursday.
