Kamala Harris attributed Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate to “Donald Trump and the billionaires club.”
“They are who is in his club,” she told Charlamagne tha God on The Breakfast Club, referring to the former president. “That’s who he cares about.”
Harris’ response came after Charlamagne asked her: “How do you feel, Madam Vice President, about major publications like the L.A. Times and The Washington Post refusing to endorse somebody for president?”
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“You know, Charlamagne, it’s disappointing, no doubt,” she replied. “But the other piece of it is it gets back to my point about who is Donald Trump. Because he is the one, right, who is up for election with me and I think that some of your listeners may know and others may not, which is that, look, it’s the billionaires and Donald Trump club. That’s who’s in his club. That’s who he hangs out with, that’s who he cares about.”
She continued: “That’s why when he was last president, he put in place a massive tax cut for billionaires and the biggest corporations, and that is exactly what he will do again.”
The Democratic nominee spoke after Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, defended his decision to end the newspaper’s 50-year tradition of endorsing presidential candidates. As many as 200,000 people reportedly canceled their subscriptions as a result, and two editorial board members and two columnists are said to have resigned.
“What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias,” wrote Bezos in an op-ed. “A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one,” he added.
The Los Angeles Times, owned by another billionaire, Patrick Soon-Shiong, also chose not to make an endorsement. “I think my fear is, if we chose either one, that it would just add to the division,” Shoon-Shiong reportedly said.
Harris insisted Trump’s focus is firmly on the rich and privileged.
“His policies are not about middle-class votes,” she said. “He’s not sitting around thinking about what he can do to take care of your grandmother and your grandfather. He’s thinking about people like himself or himself and all of his grievances and all that makes him angry about how he has been treated as opposed to worrying about how you have been treated and what his responsibility is to lift you up.”
Asked about reports that she is doing poorly among Black male voters, Harris responded: “The brothers aren’t saying that.”
She said she felt widespread support for her efforts to “lift up the community” with plans to help first-time homebuyers and small business owners. “I have said from the very beginning that Black men are no different from any other voter,” she said. “You have to earn their vote.”
