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CNN
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As vice president, Kamala Harris played a major role in a remarkably progressive Biden administration that fought mergers, took on Big Tech and denounced corporate greed.
As the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Harris finds herself in the middle of a tug-of-war as she crafts her own economic agenda on major issues like taxes, trade and regulation.
Some business leaders and wealthy donors are hoping Harris will embrace more centrist policies as she lays out her agenda, including rolling back Biden-era antitrust crackdowns.
“CEOs are very enthusiastic about Harris,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, founder and president of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, said in a telephone interview with CNN.
Sonnenfeld stressed Harris’ confidence in protecting the rule of law and expressed hope for a readjustment of trade, regulatory and tax policies.
Progressive groups, wary of billionaire donors and their deep pockets, are already trying to persuade Harris to continue and build on Biden’s legacy.
To cite just one example of this emerging battle, the two sides are clashing over the fate of Lina Khan, the head of the Federal Trade Commission and arguably the most influential corporate regulator in the Biden administration. Some businesses are furious at her unprecedented antitrust crackdowns. Progressives have backed Khan’s leadership.
Meanwhile, Harris, who is relatively unknown on economic policy, has not said much about her position.
“She’s a blank slate. She can’t afford to go too far left because that would erode business confidence. And so much of the economy is built on confidence,” said Greg Valliere, chief U.S. policy strategist at AGF Investments.
Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman raised eyebrows when he told CNN last week that Harris should replace Khan, the antitrust enforcer who takes on Big Tech, Big Oil and even Big Mattress.
Of course, some of Khan’s critics have a stake in the outcome of this battle.
Hoffman sits on the board of Microsoft, a company the FTC unsuccessfully tried to block from buying “Call of Duty” video game maker Activision Blizzard for $69 billion. The FTC is also investigating a recent deal between Microsoft and artificial intelligence startup Inflection.
Another Democratic donor, billionaire Barry Diller, told CNBC on Friday that he would lobby Harris to replace Khan, saying the FTC chairman is “an idiot” who is against “almost everything” companies want to do.
Diller, chairman of the IAC conglomerate, also has a stake in what happens to Khan.
CNN has learned that the FTC has several ongoing investigations into subsidiaries of IAC, the company that owns dozens of media brands, including Angi, People and Care.com.
It is unclear which IAC subsidiaries are under active FTC investigation.
In a statement to CNN, IAC said the company “does not comment on the status of investigations.”
Diller told CNN in a statement Tuesday that he “spoke badly” about Khan in the CNBC interview.
“I said she was an idiot. She’s not. She’s smart, but I think she’s going too far in disrupting reasonable business combinations,” Diller said.
An FTC spokesperson declined to comment on the news of the investigations, which have not been previously reported.
Today, an alliance of more than 20 pro-consumer groups led by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is calling on Harris to “publicly signal” her support for Khan.
In a letter from the alliance, first shared with CNN, progressive groups including Public Citizen, the AFL-CIO and the NAACP expressed “concern” about Hoffman’s call to fire Khan and that “billionaires are choosing their own regulators.”
“Removing Lina Khan from her position would harm millions of families, make Americans cynical about government at a time when you inspire hope, and represent a step backward from completing the unfinished business of (and building on) the legacy of the Biden-Harris administration,” the letter, which was sent Tuesday morning, said.
One of the organizers, PCCC co-founder Adam Green, told CNN in a phone interview that publicly supporting Khan “should be a no-brainer” for Harris — and suggested there could be a backlash if she didn’t.
“There’s a lot of default trust in Kamala Harris that she’s going to build on the legacy of economic populism from the Biden-Harris administration, not reduce it,” Green said. “But that trust could be very easily shaken if she were to suggest that Lina Khan, one of the shining stars of the administration, could even potentially be fired.”
Sonnenfeld, the Yale professor dubbed the “CEO whisperer,” predicted that Khan would not get that public support.
“That’s not going to happen. His days are numbered,” Sonnenfeld said.
FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar previously told CNN that Khan was “honored to serve in the Biden administration.”–“The Harris administration, during which she protected consumers, workers and entrepreneurs from illegal behavior and corporate abuse.”
A Harris campaign aide told CNN last week that there have been “no policy discussions” about replacing Khan at this time.
Awaiting views on taxes and energy
Beyond antitrust, CEOs are watching Harris’ priorities on tax.
Former President Donald Trump not only wants to extend the 2017 tax cuts, but he has also called for lowering the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 20 percent, or even 15 percent.
President Joe Biden has proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28% and has promised not to raise taxes on those earning less than $400,000 a year.
Harris has yet to specify where she thinks the corporate tax rate should be, but as a 2020 presidential candidate, she pushed for the rate to return to 35%, where it was before Trump’s tax cuts.
Another major sticking point is energy, where Trump has tried to blame the Biden-Harris administration for periods of high gas prices.
Trump also highlighted Harris’s previous support for a ban on hydraulic fracturing – a radical measure that could significantly harm U.S. oil supplies.
“She doesn’t want fracking,” Mr. Trump said at a rally last week in North Carolina. “She’s going to have to pay a lot of money.”
It is true that as a 2020 presidential candidate, Harris supported a ban on fracking, but she later reversed her decision.
Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for Harris’ campaign, said in a statement to CNN that “Trump’s false statements about banning fracking are a clear attempt to distract from his own plans to enrich oil and gas executives at the expense of the middle class.”
Hitt notably pointed out that the Biden-Harris administration has not only passed the nation’s largest climate change bill ever, but has also presided over record domestic energy production in the United States. That includes not only clean energy like solar, but also record U.S. oil and natural gas production.
Sonnenfeld, the Yale professor, argued that Harris’ campaign should talk about it more.
“They may not want to brag about it because they want to avoid getting the wrath of environmentalists,” he said. “But it’s a very effective response to the ‘drill, baby, drill’ mantra.”