Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) and her fellow progressive lawmakers are plotting to see "how far we can push" Vice President Kamala Harris left "once she wins the presidency."
"It’s about us organizing and seeing how far we can push her once she wins the presidency," the far-left "Squad" member told the Washington Post.
During her tenure in the Senate, Harris was a known progressive ally and supported liberal policies such as the Green New Deal, decriminalizing illegal immigration, and banning fracking. Harris’s legislative record won her the title of most liberal senator. Since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has walked back several of those far-left policies, but Omar said she is encouraged by Harris’s far-left Senate record, the Post reported.
Progressive Democrats have largely rallied behind Harris’s more moderate campaign, but they plan to put the pressure on once she’s in office, according to the Post.
"I think lots of people are holding their nose because they’re, like, whatever it takes to get you to win," a Democratic strategist who works closely with congressional progressives told the Post. "I have no doubt they’ll duke it out after the election."
"Squad" member Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.) urged Harris to remember how "valuable" Biden’s partnership with progressives was to the Biden-Harris administration.
"I do believe and hope and expect that [Harris] understands how important progressives were to the Biden administration’s victories," said Jayapal, who chairs the House Progressive Caucus. "I hope she sees how valuable that partnership and that work together was."
The Washington Democrat also urged Harris to surround herself with progressives and appoint them to positions of power in her administration as Biden did, referring to former chief of staff Ron Klain.
"I do believe it is important who she surrounds herself with," Jayapal added. "It is important that she has a team as the president did and a chief of staff as the president did that really values progressives as part of the coalition."
A progressive Defense Department official said in August that Harris’s connection to the far-left wing of her party offers opportunities for her administration to be heavily progressive.
"She’s friends with so many progressive people, and there’s so many progressive people in that sphere that it changes the playing field," the official said.