Beshear fleshes out difference between Biden, Harris agendas

Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear offered a contrast between the agendas of President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris after the vice president struggled this week to paint clear differences between her and her boss.

Beshear, a Harris surrogate who was vetted as a possible running mate, explained that Biden’s massive investments in manufacturing, infrastructure and green energy will pay dividends in the future, while Harris’ proposals like home buying assistance, child tax break expansions and aid to start small businesses will have more immediate impacts.

“President Biden’s plans were about building a future economy that is happening right now — we’re building the two biggest battery plants on planet earth in Kentucky. We built the cleanest, greenest recycled paper mill the world’s ever seen. Those are all through his policies,” Beshear told ABC’s “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz of Biden’s efforts.

“But hers are about right now. How do we help the American people that are struggling to pay the bills? And that’s middle-class tax breaks, that’s affordable housing, that’s the child care tax break. All the things that she is working on will help us get through the next six months and the next year, so that we will walk into this really strong economy that’s being built out there.”

The comments come after Harris struggled during an interview this week to lay out what she would have done differently from Biden — a moment Republicans seized on amid polls showing that voters want change.

When asked on ABC’s “The View” if she would have “done something differently than President Biden during the past four years,” Harris responded that “there is not a thing that comes to mind” before later noting her previous pledge that she would appoint a Republican to her cabinet.

Beshear also said that he hoped a Harris administration would be able to move the country beyond its current state of fierce partisanship, arguing that the bitter divide in the U.S. right now helps explain why the election between her and former President Donald Trump is so tight.

“Well, we’ve got a lot of partisanship in America right now, and it’s something that I hope after this election that the vice president can move us beyond that, that she can remind us that this isn’t supposed to be an us versus them,” Beshear said. “She can remind us that we are all Americans first, and Democrats, Republicans and independents, second, third or fourth.”

Beshear did, however, take the time to knock Trump over falsehoods he’s made about the current disaster relief efforts from hurricanes Helene and Milton, including that the federal government is only offering $750 in individual aid per person.

“In Kentucky, we went through our worst tornado disaster and our worst flood disaster in our history, and I didn’t have to deal with any of the shenanigans that Donald Trump is putting out right now, and his lies can hurt people. I mean, lying that $750 is all that’s available, that means that individual might not apply for the $40,000-plus in individual assistance,” he said.

“If you truly care about the people that are harmed more than yourself, you wouldn’t politicize this. You wouldn’t be putting out all this misinformation. As somebody who has led through natural disasters, it hurts.”

Beshear also panned Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, the GOP vice presidential nominee, for again not explicitly saying that Trump lost the 2020 race in an interview with Raddatz earlier on the program.

“All you’re asking him to do is admit reality, and we deserve to have a vice president who believes in democracy and can say, ‘Yes, Donald Trump lost the last election, and now we’re running in this election,'” Beshear told Raddatz.