Washington:

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is potentially poised to become the Democratic presidential nominee in the November election. Here are her views and actions related to some key business topics.

Tech Regulation

As California attorney general, Harris sued eBay in 2012, alleging anticompetitive hiring practices surrounding a no-poaching agreement with Intuit that led to a nearly $4 million settlement in 2014.

In 2015, she compelled startup Houzz to hire a chief privacy officer after allegations that the home design app had recorded sales calls without proper notification and consent.

One of her signature issues was curtailing the distribution of pornography on social media, particularly “revenge porn,” a practice involving the posting of explicit photos without the subject’s consent. She took credit for a pressure campaign that led to Facebook, Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft and others taking measures to remove certain explicit images.

“I cannot emphasize enough how leaders in technology have stepped up,” said Harris at a news conference then. “I’m not suggesting any of them were happy to get a call from the AG saying, ‘Come in, we want to talk with you.’ But they all did. They did.”

Big Tech

As a candidate for California attorney general, Harris reportedly assured potential donors that she was “a capitalist.” She has generally been seen as cozy with prominent tech executives and investors, the local industry in her home Bay Area. She attended the wedding of Sean Parker, an early Facebook executive. Her brother-in-law, Tony West, is the chief legal officer for Uber.

She also accepted donations from Reid Hoffman, a prominent venture capitalist and co-founder of Linkedin, as well as billionaire John Doerr and venture capitalist Ron Conway. Big tech executives also supported her, including Sheryl Sandberg, then chief operating officer of Facebook, and Marc Benioff, the billionaire CEO of Salesforce.

Climate And Energy

Harris’ climate and energy positions are similar to Biden’s. But throughout her career she has made clear that clean energy and environmental justice are priorities.

When Biden announced Harris as his running mate in the 2020 race, he emphasized her tough stance against big oil when she served in key roles in California, noting lawsuits she had launched both as San Francisco’s district attorney from 2004 to 2011 and then as the state’s attorney general until January 2017, when she became a U.S. senator.

Last year, Harris made her debut at international climate negotiations, announcing a $3 billion commitment to the Green Climate Fund and making her first major international speech focused on climate.

As vice president, Harris has also been involved in Environmental Protection Agency policy rollouts that tackled long-standing environmental justice issues, such as a multibillion-dollar program to replace lead pipes and lead paint around the country.

Artificial Intelligence

As vice president, Harris has been particularly outspoken on artificial intelligence. She warned against the “existential” threat of AI and said it could “endanger the very existence of humanity,” in a November 2023 address.

In meeting with tech execs like Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Harris warned that they have a “moral” obligation to guard against AI’s possible dangers.

She backed an AI executive order from Biden that seeks stronger protections for consumers, singling out AI-generated scam calls and the impacts of unlabeled AI-generated content.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

US Vice President Kamala Harris praised President Joe Biden’s “patriotic” decision not to seek reelection Sunday and vowed to win the Democratic nomination and defeat Donald Trump.

“With this selfless and patriotic act, President Biden is doing what he has done throughout his life of service: putting the American people and our country above everything else,” she said in a statement.

“I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination…. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

For years Kamala Harris faced criticism that she was not up to the job of being a heartbeat away from the presidency. Now, she finds herself feted by Democrats as their best hope to stop Donald Trump’s comeback.

Despite blazing a trail as the first woman, Black and South Asian vice president in US history, the 59-year-old Democrat long struggled with approval ratings as bad or worse than President Joe Biden’s.

The last 12 months, however, have revealed a transformed Harris.

And with Biden’s endorsement of Harris after stunning the world by dropping his own reelection bid Sunday, she’s suddenly on the cusp of history.

Harris will hope she has done the hard work to earn her full party’s backing in the midst of the crisis.

As the ageing Biden faded over the last year, his “veep” emerged as a force on the campaign trail, pushing for abortion rights and reaching out to core voters, including suburban women and Black men.

With a fondness for the f-bomb and her family nickname of “Momala” going viral, she has also finally started to cut through the noise to voters who previously barely paid attention.

She has also won plaudits in party circles by staying loyal to the 81-year-old president during the last few weeks, even as political vultures circled over his candidacy.

She now is likely to face Trump — a brutal battle against a candidate who defeated Hillary Clinton in her bid become the first female commander in chief in 2016.

The fact that Harris has blamed much of the criticism of her by Republicans on racism and sexism would likely make a win feel even more vindicating for her.

Trump and other Republicans have notably stepped up their attacks on her as Biden’s position weakened and polls showed Harris would fare better against him than Biden.

‘Ready to serve’

A child of immigrant parents — her father was from Jamaica and her mother from India — Harris grew up in Oakland, California, in an activist household that saw her attend her first rallies in a stroller.

Her focus on rights and justice saw her build an impressive CV, becoming California’s first Black attorney general and the first woman of South Asian heritage elected to the US Senate.

Harris then went up against Biden in the 2020 primaries. In one stinging attack, she criticized him for allegedly opposing the bussing of students to segregated schools.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day. And that little girl was me,” she said in a barbed attack on her future boss.

But as his running mate, she consolidated the coalition that helped defeat the incumbent Trump in 2020.

Her transition to the White House, however, proved difficult.

Critics said she was underwhelming and gaffe-prone in a job that has been known to flummox many officeholders.

Struggling to carve out a role, she was tasked by Biden with getting to the roots of the illegal migration problem, but fumbled and then got defensive in response to a question during a visit to the Mexican border.

Unusually high staff turnover fed rumors of discontent in the vice presidential office.

And Republicans relentlessly targeted her as being unfit to take over should the worst happen to America’s oldest-ever president, often resorting to stereotypes her supporters branded as sexist and racist.

Harris told the Wall Street Journal in February: “I am ready to serve. There’s no question about that.”

‘Momala’

Things began to change as the 2024 race got underway.

The Biden campaign repeatedly deployed her to battleground states to hammer home the party’s message on abortion rights, with Harris becoming the first vice president to visit an abortion clinic.

Gradually, she began to draw warm and fired-up crowds.

Some of the outreach was, however, cringe-inducing. Earlier this year, she was mocked after she told chat show host Drew Barrymore her family sometimes called her “Momala,” and Barrymore replied: “We need you to be Momala of the country.”

But voters seemed to be switching on.

A clip of her quoting her mother as often saying “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” became a meme, with a rising sense among supporters that now could be her time.

If elected, Harris would break one of the highest glass ceilings left for women in the United States — that of occupying the country’s top office.

Her husband, Douglas Emhoff, would also be breaking new ground, moving from being the current Second Gentleman to the country’s first First Gentleman.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)