US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Thomas and Mack Center, University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Nevada, on August 10, 2024.
Ronda Churchill | Afp | Getty Images
Economist Brian Deese has begun advising Vice President Kamala Harris as she develops her economic policy plan, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Deese is a former director of President Joe Biden‘s National Economic Council and a fellow at MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
Harris has said she plans to release her brand new presidential campaign’s first formal platform — focused on lifting up the middle class — in the coming days.
As Harris and her team have been putting together the policy plan, Deese has been a key advisor and sounding board for Harris, said the people, who were granted anonymity in order to discuss internal campaign operations.
Harris is also working with Mike Pyle, a former deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics in the Biden White House, these people said.
Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese (L) and Vice President Kamala Harris (R) listen during the weekly economic briefing in the Oval Office at the White House on April 9, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Amr Alfiky-Pool/Getty Images)
Amr Alfiky | Getty Images
Both Deese and Pyle are alums of asset management giant BlackRock, key Wall Street experience that they bring to the Harris team. Pyle was global chief investment strategist at BlackRock. Deese did three year stint as the company’s head of sustainable investing.
Another key figure back who is back in the fold is Deanne Millison, Harris’ chief economic adviser until 2023, a person with direct knowledge told CNBC. Millison currently works as a lobbyist for Ford Motor Co.
Deese did not return requests for comment. Pyle did not reply to a request for comment sent through Macro Advisory Partners, where he is a senior advisor. A spokesperson for Ford did not immediately return a request for comment.
Along with Pyle and Deese, former senior Treasury official Brian Nelson is also advising Harris on policy. So is longtime White House senior advisor Gene Sperling.
Deese is part of a small group of advisors who are helping Harris and her team develop policy proposals that dovetail with Biden’s broader economic agenda. As Biden’s vice president for the past three years, Harris has been a vocal champion of his economic recovery plan, both across the country and around the globe.
But now that she is the Democratic nominee, Harris has so far offered few indications of how she might shift course to carve out a slightly different version of Biden’s economic agenda.
Her barnstorm tour of battleground states last week devoted little time to specific details, like tax policy and jobs.
For now, Harris campaign spokesman Charles Lutvak pointed CNBC for policy outlines to Harris’ recent remarks to reporters on a tarmac, where she addressed the issue of Fed independence and her planned policy rollout. He also pointed to a speech she gave in Atlanta two weeks earlier, where she hinted at some her possible policy topics.
In that speech, Harris touched on price gauging, corporate landlords and fighting pharmaceutical giants.
Deese was on the frontlines of the Biden administration’s economic response to Covid-19, including the passage of trillions of dollars in stimulus and tax credits that helped the U.S. economy recover faster than nearly any other country.
He also helped to shepherd key pieces of economic legislation through Congress, bills like the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act that are core pieces of Biden’s legacy in the White House.
Deese’s career in Democratic economic policy work stretches over several decades.
He started out as an economic policy analyst at the progressive think tank Center for American Progress.
He worked on several Democratic presidential campaigns including for former Secretary of State John Kerry in 2004 and former President Barack Obama in 2008.
He ended up joining the Obama White House and working his way up to become one of the president’s senior advisors.
Deese also played a key role in negotiating the Paris climate agreement under Obama, positioning him as a climate-focused economic advisor that aligned well with the Biden agenda.