Vice President Harris, in her first one-on-one primetime interview since launching her campaign in July, failed to give specifics on how she pays for her pricey middle class tax breaks and new spending on down payment assistance should Republicans take control of the Senate, which is growing increasingly likely.

Earlier in the day on Wednesday, the interviewer, MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, said Ms. Harris gave no indication about what she does in such a situation. 

The provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — President Trump’s signature legislative accomplishment — are set to expire next year, which Ms. Ruhle noted should be an important subject for this year’s election. Ms. Harris said she would stick to President Biden’s pledge to not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 and that she would expand the child tax credit to $6,000 per child. 

“We’re gonna have to raise corporate taxes, and we’re gonna have to … make sure that the biggest corporations and billionaires pay their fair share,” Ms. Harris said when pressed by Ms. Ruhle about how a President Harris would fund her agenda. 

“The business leaders that are actually a part of the engine of America’s economy agree that people should pay their fair share,” Ms. Harris said. “I’ve worked with the private sector my entire career.”

Ms. Ruhle was clearly unimpressed. When MSNBC ran a preview of the exclusive interview earlier in the day on Wednesday, Ms. Ruhle said Ms. Harris was clearly not giving enough information about how you pay for an expensive agenda if you can’t raise taxes because Republicans have taken the Senate. 

“She doesn’t answer the question around, if the GOP is controlling the Senate, if she can’t raise corporate taxes, where is she gonna get the money from?” Ms. Ruhle told her colleague Nicole Wallace during an interview. “She says: ‘We just have to do it,’ and that’s great and that’s a campaign promise, but … if it means we’re just gonna borrow again, we’re just never addressing the deficit.”

According to current polling, Democrats are projected to hold on to every seat they currently occupy except for two — Montana and West Virginia. Senator Manchin opted to retire this year, and his state’s popular governor, Jim Justice, is widely expected to pick up the seat for the GOP. In Montana, Senator Tester has been lagging behind his Republican opponent, Tim Sheehy, for months. 

Ms. Harris took part of her time to knock Trump’s plans for corporate tax cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy — plans which he has also failed to justify in terms of deficit reduction beyond claiming that tariffs will pay for the shortfall. “Not everyone gets handed things on a silver platter,” the vice president said, presumably referring to Trump. 

“People want to do more than just get by — they want to get ahead,” Ms. Harris added, then telling the story about how she had “grown up a middle class kid,” and that it took her mother years to save up as a single mother to afford a home. 

When Ms. Harris argued that the former president left America in its worst economic condition since the Great Depression, Ms. Ruhle was quick to offer the context of the crisis. “It was during Covid,” Ms. Ruhle interrupted, noting that the country had been “shut down” and that Trump was not entirely to blame. 

Looking forward, Ms. Harris knocked what she calls Trump’s “national sales tax,” which comes in the form of “tariffs to the point that the average person will spend 20 percent more” on everyday goods, Ms. Harris said. “The facts remain that Donald Trump has a history of taking care of very rich people,” she added. “My perspective is … when you grow the middle class, America’s economy is stronger.”

One of her stronger moments in the interview was talking about America’s housing crisis, which is a top issue for voters, especially young voters who have been hit by the historic inflation rates that have plagued America for the past two years. 

The problem with building housing, experts have found, is that state and local governments have created too many rules and regulations that grant vetoes to too many community members when it comes to agreeing on when and where to build new housing units. Ms. Ruhle pressed Ms. Harris on what kind of role the president had in cutting through state and local red tape in places like suburban Pittsburgh — where the two filmed the interview. 

Ms. Harris offered no specifics on how she, as president, could strip through the state and local zoning laws that govern housing across the country. She said she would be “working with state and local governments” to create “incentives” such as “giving benefits … around transit dollars,” though offered no specific amounts or legislation that she would support.