“Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary on Saturday laid out a series of problems he has with Vice President Harris’s proposed economic plan, calling parts of it a “really bad idea.”
Harris formally announced her economic plan at a rally last week in North Carolina, which included a broad range of economic policies including child and home-owner tax credits and a federal ban on price gouging on groceries.
Speaking on the price gouging proposal on CNN, O’Leary said, “First, they tried that in Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, the USSR [Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]. No, that’s not going to work.”
“It’s impossible to understand how a corporation would set pricing based on gouging. What does that even mean? That’s why it’s being ridiculed.”
The investor noted Harris has great momentum since replacing President Biden on the Democratic presidential ticket but has yet to speak heavily with reporters.
“So, throw anything at the wall, you want free money for everybody. That’s what every politician does, but it has no merit,” he said. “In reality, at some point, she’s got to put forward policies that she could be questioned on in front of a reporter, and I’m not sure when that’s going to happen, that’s what I’m concerned about right now.”
Harris faced scrutiny earlier this month from the Trump campaign for declining to take questions from reporters in the first few weeks of her White House bid. She told reporters earlier this month she hoped to sit for an extended interview before the end of the month.
O’Leary also took issue with Harris’s push to help first-time homebuyers by providing them with $25,000 in down-payment assistance, along with a tax credit for first-time homebuyers.
“There are bad ideas, bad bad ideas, and really bad ideas and that falls in this category. When you give $25,000 to anybody in a constrained market, you cause inflation. So if there’s three houses for sale on the street and everybody bidding on it gets another $25,000, all of that attributes to the seller and you cause the price of the house to go up because there’s no supply,” he said.
Harris also proposed the construction of 3 million new housing units over the next four years with the use of what she described as the “first-ever” tax incentive for building starter homes for first-time home buyers.
“[Real estate] is not controlled by a federal mandate, housing is state by state. She can do nothing to solve that problem. There’s no way she’s building 3 million houses, which state is going to give her that mandate?” O’Leary continued.
CNN anchor Jessica Dean interjected to note Harris said she wants to work with state and local entities and asked if this could change the affordable housing crisis facing the country.
“Really? Then, what’s she been doing for the last three-and-half years? They haven’t solved that problem. What have they been doing at all?” O’Leary responded, pointing to housing costs in California and other states.
O’Leary noted he does not “actually care” who wins the White House, and only cares about policy as an investor.
“I want her to be sucessful, I want her, should she win, to be a great president with policies that let me, as an investor, invest,” he said. “But I really hate this rhetoric, this political theater. I want her to put her policies in front of you, a reporter that would ask her how she could actually implement it. I’m waiting for that and so are millions of other investors, and by the way, lots of voters in swing states. We need some meat on the bone.”
Harris’s economic agenda was quickly bashed by Trump’s campaign, which equated it to socialist policies implemented in countries like Cuba and Venezuela. The Washington Post Editorial Board called the agenda a “populist gimmick.”
The Hill reached out to the Harris campaign for further comment.