Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau laughed at media outlets on Thursday for calling Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) a moderate, pointing out that Harris has one of the most progressive records in the Senate.
“It was hilarious to me that she is being called in all this coverage a moderate, like Joe Biden has found a fellow moderate or centrist,” Favreau said on an episode of his podcast, “Pod Save America.” “She supports something extremely close to Medicare For All, which Bernie Sanders acknowledged in his statement supporting her. She’s for the Green New Deal. She has one of the most liberal records in the U.S. Senate.”
“If you want to call Kamala Harris’ record in the Senate and her policies that she’s supporting now centrist or moderate, great. If that’s where the Overton Window has moved, then congratulations to all the progressive activists because you have f***in’ moved the s*** out of that window, that supporting the Green New Deal and, basically, Medicare For All is now moderate and centrist. Fantastic, I’ll take it,” Favreau said.
Favreau is a veteran of the Obama administration and served as the former president’s head speechwriter from 2009 to 2013.
On Tuesday, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden chose Harris to run as his vice president. The announcement was followed by a series of articles describing Harris as a “moderate” pick for the Biden campaign.
The New York Times described Harris this way:
A pragmatic moderate who spent most of her career as a prosecutor, Ms. Harris was seen throughout the vice-presidential search as among the safest choices available to Mr. Biden. She has been a reliable ally of the Democratic establishment, with flexible policy priorities that largely mirror Mr. Biden’s, and her supporters argued that she could reinforce Mr. Biden’s appeal to Black voters and women without stirring particularly vehement opposition on the right or left.
An article in The Associated Press characterized Harris’ voting record in the Senate as “centrist”:
Trump’s uneven handling of the crises has given Biden an opening, and he enters the fall campaign in strong position against the president. In adding Harris to the ticket, he can point to her relatively centrist record on issues such as health care and her background in law enforcement in the nation’s largest state.
Dan Pfeiffer, another former Obama staffer and cohost of “Pod Save America,” joined Favreau on Thursday’s episode and advised progressive activists disappointed with Biden’s pick for vice president that progressives “are going to have an opportunity to have a real influence on the agenda in a Biden/Harris administration.”
“He’s really the first candidate that I can ever think of that wins a primary and moves left,” Pfeiffer said, later adding, “Biden has made real, fundamental, substantive shifts on issues like climate and student debt and taxes and other issues.”
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