Bernie Sanders Makes The Progressive Case For Kamala Harris

Shortly before he was tapped to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). 

“I’m not going to tell you that he’s a close friend — he’s not — but we’ve been in touch and touch recently,” Sanders said of Walz in a conversation with TPM on Wednesday. “What I like about him is he is a very down-to-earth guy.”

And so, like others in the left wing of the Democratic Party, Sanders was pleased to see Walz join the ticket in light of his record as governor, which includes enacting multiple progressive policy priorities — legislation of the sort Sanders has supported for years, including paid sick leave, strong protections for unions, universal school meals, free college tuition programs, and a child tax credit. 

“I think he is able to communicate with working class people very, very effectively. And I think he has a record in Minnesota that — given the fact that he doesn’t have much of a majority in the legislature there — he’s been able to get through a lot of very positive and progressive pieces of legislation,” Sanders said of Walz.

“I like the idea that he is a former football coach, a teacher, a down-to-earth guy,” the senator added, “and I think he’s a real asset for her ticket.”

The progressive enthusiasm for Walz is notable because Sanders and others on the left were staunch backers of President Joe Biden before he abandoned his re-election bid and endorsed Harris. Progressive champions in Congress, including Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), were some of the most prominent leaders to stand behind Biden as other Democrats pressed him to leave the race. That support was a direct result of Biden’s legislative agenda, which the White House crafted with input from unity task forces that included Sanders and his allies. Biden’s first chief of staff, Ron Klain, also made a point of reaching out to the left and developed a reputation as a progressive ally in the West Wing. 

It remains to be seen whether Harris will adopt a similarly progressive agenda and whether Walz or another figure might emerge as a key liaison to the left, in the way that Klain did post-2020. For his part, Sanders is willing to be patient. Harris, after all, had to start her campaign against former President Donald Trump in an unprecedented sprint following Biden’s exit from the presidential race last month. 

“I just don’t want to get into that right now because it’s still — you know, in fairness to the vice president, she’s had to move very, very quickly in a few weeks,” Sanders said when asked if progressives had the level of contact with Harris and her team that they enjoyed with Biden. “She’s been going around the country. She’s enjoying very large crowds. You know, I think she’s doing a good job. The polling is looking very good. We hope it continues.” 

Biden’s push for unity early in his term came after Sanders spent years energizing the Democratic Party’s left flank, including young voters. The Vermont senator is an independent, but he caucuses with the Democrats and he ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. In both cases, Sanders won significant support from key Democratic constituencies. His campaign also helped spark the careers of Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives who would go on to serve in Congress and local legislatures. After the 2016 race exposed divisions between Sanders and more mainstream Democratic figures, Biden actively worked to bring the party together. 

While Harris may not yet have made any formal unity efforts with the left flank, Sanders and other progressives can take heart in the early details about her policy platform. Harris is set to deliver a speech in North Carolina Frida focused on her economic plan Friday. She will reportedly focus on confronting price gouging along with other measures to lower the cost of living. Harris also plans to discuss bolstering the child tax credit, another progressive policy priority. Sanders was enthusiastic when asked about Harris’ focus on price gouging.

“One of the realities of why we have had inflation is that large corporations who monopolize sector after sector who are making record breaking profits are making those record breaking profits because they are gouging consumers,” Sanders said. “We’re seeing that in the food industry. We’re seeing that in the fossil fuel industry. We’re seeing that in many industries across the country. So, I think the fact that she is talking about that is absolutely right. We’ve got to stop price gouging.”

Not all of Harris’ initial policy signals line up with Sanders’ own priorities. As she rolled out her economic agenda, Harris’ campaign quietly signaled that she would not support Medicare For All, the senators’ signature health care policy. And, while progressives have expressed confidence that Harris will do more to oppose Israel’s war in Gaza than Biden, she has yet to outline a detailed position on the conflict, which has been a major source of friction between the White House and the left. Nevertheless, Sanders expressed optimism about Harris emerging agenda and flatly stated he sees her as a fellow “progressive.”

“She’s balancing a dozen different factors,” he said, during what is “literally a unique political moment in American history. Nobody’s had to do what she has to do, put together a campaign, and a team, and an agenda, and a schedule, all that in a short period of time.”

“I’ve known Kamala for a number of years. We served together in the Senate, we ran against each other in the presidential primary. I think she is a progressive,” Sanders continued, adding, “She’s going to have to formulate what her views are, and I think she will do that. And I think she stands on a record. She’s been part of the Biden administration and that’s been a progressive agenda. And I hope very much that in the coming weeks and months she will be bringing forth an agenda that speaks to the needs of working families.”

Sanders is also working to have input on Harris’ agenda. Earlier this month, Sanders unveiled polling from the progressive firm Data For Progress. The survey, which Sanders used to make the case that Democrats should adopt a progressive policy agenda, showed strong public support for a suite of policies including raising taxes on the wealthy, increasing the minimum wage, expanding Social Security and Medicare, the child tax credit, and lowering the cost of prescription drugs. 

Biden has supported measures in line with some of Sanders’ priorities, but they have proved difficult to pass through Congress due to opposition from more moderate Democrats and Republicans, an impasse that caused Sanders to express some frustration. “I think it has a lot to do with money and politics, but I think at the end of the day, you have a whole lot of people who are working class people who are hurting,” he said. “In fact, we have 60 percent of people living paycheck to paycheck. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth. We’ve got half of our senior citizens trying to get by on $30,000 or less. That is the reality. People can’t afford housing, they can’t afford health care, and it is a reality.”

As a result of those challenges, Sanders wants to see more Democrats vocally get behind measures like expanding Medicare to cover dental, hearing, and vision costs, and removing the cap on Social Security taxation so the wealthy pay a full share of their income into the program. 

“All of these are sensible ideas, been talked about for years, so my own thought is that if we want to win over working class people who’ve become disillusioned with the status quo politics, I think reaching out and talking about these issues is the right thing to do,” said Sanders.

As he outlined the challenges facing many Americans and areas where he’d like to see Democrats shift their priorities, Sanders stressed that he believes both Biden and Harris have made real progressive achievements. 

“President Biden and Vice President Harris have a right to be proud of what they have accomplished over the last three and a half years. When Biden ran for office … he said he wanted to be the most progressive president since FDR and I think, in many ways, he has. He kept his word,” Sanders said. “They should be proud of their accomplishments in a number of areas, but at the same time, you cannot close your eyes to the reality of what tens and tens of millions of people, working class people are experiencing.”

Indeed, a striking feature of the political landscape since Sanders’ initial foray into presidential politics is the fact progressivism has taken root in the White House while, in Congress, some of Sanders’ allies have not been able to hold onto their seats. This election cycle has seen Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) — two members of the Sanders-aligned “Squad” in the House — defeated in primary challenges. Those races were defined by massive spending against them from AIPAC and other groups who oppose critics of the way in which Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has handled the war in Gaza, which has left tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians dead.

To Sanders, the extent to which special interest groups and megadonors influence elections is “one of the outrages of the current political scene.” He has unsuccessfully pushed the Democratic National Committee to prohibit the use of Super PAC funding in the party’s primaries. 

“Getting back to AIPAC, it’s not just that they defeated two good members of Congress, the message went out, if you want to speak out against Netanyahu, you’re going to have to pay a price,” Sanders said. “That kind of is going to inhibit people from speaking out on important issues if they’re afraid that millions of dollars are going to come in against them. It’s a horrific situation and it’s got to be dealt with.”

Even as he is calling for changes to the Democratic Party’s primary processes and attempting to push the party’s agenda to the left, Sanders is already campaigning for Harris. While he has yet to give Harris a formal endorsement, Sanders was one of several lawmakers who took part in a “Progressives for Harris” fundraising and organizing call earlier this month. Sanders is also stepping up criticism of Harris’ opponent, Trump. 

In the past week, Sanders repeatedly called out Trump’s efforts to spread conspiracy theories about the size of crowds at Harris’ rallies. 

“I think we have to look at these incredible lies, preposterous lies, and understand that he is laying the groundwork for saying that, if he loses — and I don’t know that he will — but if he loses the election, he will say, see, I told you it’s all fraud, it’s fake, I really won,” Sanders said. “I think people have got to accept that sad and tragic and painful reality and figure out how we address it. But that is what this is about to be.”

Sanders characterized Trump’s behavior as Orwellian and undemocratic.

“Don’t believe your lying eyes. I, Donald Trump, I’m the only one who knows the truth, and I’m telling you that what you saw on television … it’s a lie, it’s all fake, and I alone have the truth,” Sanders said. “That’s a pretty dangerous situation for a country to be in and I think we have got to take what he’s doing a bit more seriously than we have until now.”

With the Democratic National Convention coming up next week, Sanders is set to take his message to Chicago where he will headline a program dubbed “Progressive Central 2024” that is set to take place on the sidelines of the main event. Sanders offered a coy response and referred the question to the Harris campaign when TPM asked if he would be among the speakers at the DNC. (The Harris campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

“That’s a top secret,” Sanders said of the convention plans. “I can’t tell you.”