Trump surrogates in a Monday press conference slammed the “pure socialism” of Kamala Harris’ economic policies — and predicted a polling slump after the convention wraps.
Trump campaign adviser Brian Hughes was joined by Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) at the Trump Hotel Chicago amid the Democratic National Convention to call out Harris’ shoddy math on the cost of the newly released economic proposals.
“We’re not hearing a lot from Kamala Harris about these policies,” Hughes said. “And I think there’s a good reason when she does stop and take a question like she did yesterday and was asked how she’ll pay for the proposals that she’s advocating for, she told you it was a mistake to ask how things will be paid for.”
“I think that’s a good summary of her economic policy,” he added.
Asked about the more than $1.7 trillion price tag attached to her economic proposals, Harris told a reporter on a campaign tour of western Pennsylvania on Sunday that it was “a mistake for any person who talks about public policy to not critically evaluate how you measure the return on investment.”
She did not answer how she would pay for the eye-popping costs but suggested that some would be helpful in “increasing the tax base” — even as her campaign has accused Republican opponent Donald Trump of agitating for a middle-class tax hike.
The proposals include federally mandated price controls for groceries that economists warned would spark massive shortages, as well as a $25,000 handout to first-time homeowners and $6,000 in tax breaks for lower and middle-income families who have a child in their first year of life.
“Her idea of having basic price controls — it’s never worked anywhere,” Scott added during the Monday press conference. “This is pure socialism.”
“I want a free market; I want a bottom-up economy; I want capitalism — that’s what Trump stands for,” he also said. “What Harris stands for is what [Nicolas] Maduro and [Hugo] Chavez brought to Venezuela.”
“Venezuelans voted themselves into poverty, and that’s what this election is about,” Johnson agreed.
Scott, a former venture capitalist and cofounder of health care companies, and Johnson, who formerly ran a plastics and polyester manufacturing company, both touted Trump as the more business-friendly candidate.
But asked by a reporter about Trump’s proposal to raise tariffs on all imported goods by 10%, both demurred.
“Those tariffs are meant to discipline China,” Johnson responded, before pivoting to attack President Biden, Harris and her running-mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for their leniency toward Beijing.
“President Biden was compromised on China, so he ended a very successful program, the China Initiative, to try and stop China from stealing intellectual property on campuses,” Johnson explained, gesturing at the first family’s lucrative endeavors with Chinese state-linked entities after Joe Biden’s vice presidency ended.
“Fast forward to Governor Walz, who seems also pretty compromised by his relationship with China,” he added in reference to the Democratic vice presidential pick’s 30 visits to the nation between 1989 and 2016. “Harris would beequally soft.”
“China lies and cheats and steals about everything,” Scott also said. “They don’t comply with trade agreements. They don’t comply with the [World Trade Organization]. And guess what’s happened? We lose jobs.”
Both GOP senators also prodded members of the media to hold Harris accountable through sharp questioning about her policy stances.
“She did not get one vote in the primary,” Johnson noted. “The minimum the media needs to do is start asking her questions so the American public understands this is what you’re gonna get.”
Toward the tail end of the presser, Hughes drew attention to internal Trump campaign polling that predicted that Harris had reached a “plateau” but would peter out after the DNC’s “four-day infomercial” of a convention.
“On the other side of that, essentially, the race is where it was expected to be,” he said.
Harris will formally accept the Democratic nomination on Thursday night and deliver a speech addressing the roughly 4,000 delegates in attendance at the party’s convention.
Biden, 81, is slated to speak Monday night before departing the Windy City for a vacation in California.
