NewsNation host Chris Cuomo, on Friday, voiced criticism of Vice President Kamala Harris’s abilities following a mistake she made during her economic speech.
During her speech in North Carolina on Friday afternoon, Harris outlined her proposal for a federal ban on so-called “price gouging,” but mistakenly said “gauging” instead of “gouging.” While Cuomo mentioned that he doesn’t “care” about the slip-up, he suggested that Harris represents the broader lack of “talent in our politics right now.”
‘We Don’t Have Great Talent In Our Politics’: Chris Cuomo Roasts Kamala Harris Over Speech ‘Mistake’https://t.co/cg2PkuLBv6
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 19, 2024
“Price gauging versus gouging, she made a mistake. We noted it … I don’t really care about gouging, gauging. I don’t care, alright? You got to take the level of talent where you find it,” Cuomo said. “We don’t have great talent in our politics right now. We got to wait for better people to want to get involved in what is such a poison process. But this is who we got.”
Harris may have answers for our problems, but what is the cost? In the end, you can’t’ talk relief without talking taxes. Here’s my take pic.twitter.com/q0UV3291CD
— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) August 17, 2024
Harris stated she would “go after the bad actors” who engage in unethical price hikes, emphasizing that when businesses fail to “play by the rules,” the government must “take action,” as reported by NBC News.
On Thursday, CNN anchor Julia Chatterley remarked that while Harris’ speech had voter appeal, it lacked substantive details, particularly criticizing the vice president’s “price gouging” plan.
“I just don’t know how that federal ban is going to work. If they’re talking about directly targeting prices, it will require some form of act of Congress. Isolating how and where price gouging is taking place is very difficult. Chatterley said. “She talked about the profits of grocery stores, their margins are incredibly thin. For every dollar sale, they make profits of around one to three cents. Just try proving that their price gouging is going to be incredibly difficult beyond anything else.”
Although Harris has attributed elevated prices to corporate price gouging, economists argue that corporate actions have not significantly influenced the rise in food costs compared to the effects of government stimulus measures and the low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve, according to The New York Times.
On Friday, Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell also voiced criticism of Harris’ economic strategies to address high prices, particularly focusing on the vice president’s “price gouging” agenda.
“Nobody can explain what price gouging means. It’s like that old line about pornography, ‘I know it when I see it,’ in the sense that what does it mean to have an excessive price or an excessive profit margin? That seems to be shorthand for, ‘A price or profit margin that bugs me,’ that seems too high,” Rampell said. “We’ve seen this kind of thing tried in lots of other countries before: Venezuela, Argentina, the Soviet Union, etc.; it leads to shortages, it leads to black markets, plenty of uncertainty and beyond that, the specific way this bill is written might actually increase prices because of some of the other language in it. Things like requiring companies, public companies, to disclose in their quarterly reports the quarterly earnings reports how they’re setting prices, which is a great way to help them collude, which normally we don’t want them to do.”
