Harris makes undercover push to win over corporate America
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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Texas billionaire Mark Cuban only occasionally spoke with President Biden or his aides. But when he thought over the summer that drug-industry middlemen were hiking up the cost of medicines to drive independent pharmacies out of business, he found an eager sounding board in Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
Cuban, a celebrity entrepreneur who dabbles in politics, has spent hours in recent weeks on phone calls, text and email chains talking with the Harris campaign about the pharmacy problem—an issue he is familiar with because of an online pharmacy he co-founded—and taxes, Wall Street, and the deficit, too. When the Harris campaign rolled out its platform, Cuban saw a nod to their conversations. The platform specifically mentioned that as president, she would take on the “pharmacy middlemen" that he opposes.
Like past Democratic candidates, Harris has made taking on wrongdoing by American corporations a central part of her pitch to voters, referring on the campaign trail to her record of taking on big business, blaming food manufacturers for high grocery prices and promising to increase taxes on corporations and the wealthy. But, in private at least, she is making a quiet play for corporate America’s support, seeking out advice from leaders across sectors. She has offered few policy specifics, but many executives say they view her openness to their feedback as enough for now.
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