Former Vice President Kamala Harris is making the rounds to prompt her upcoming memoir 107 Days a retelling of the hectic process of learning that she was going to be the democratic presidential nominee, including selecting a running mate and taking on Donald Trump.
During an appearance on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show host Rachel Maddow wanted Harris to explain a part in her memoir that choosing Pete Buttigieg as her 2024 running mate would’ve been “too big of a risk” – a position Maddow believed was “because he was gay,” Mediaite reports.
Harris explained that Buttigieg was her “first choice” for her VP, writing that “he would have been an ideal partner – if I were a straight white man,” but that he was “too big of a risk.” Instead Harris picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Maddow, who is gay, asked the former vice president to “elaborate,” adding: “To say that he couldn’t be on the ticket effectively because he was gay, it’s hard to hear.”
Harris shook her head.
“No, no, no, that’s not what I said, that he couldn’t be on the ticket because he is gay,” she replied, Mediaite reports.
She added: “My point is, as I write in the book, is that I was clear that in 107 days, in one of the most hotly contested elections for president of the United States against someone like Donald Trump, who knows no floor – to be a black woman running for president of United States and as a vice presidential running mate a gay man, with the stakes being so high, it made me very sad. But I also realized it would be a real risk.”
She added: “You know, I’ve been an advocate and an ally of the LGBT community my entire life. So it wasn’t about any prejudice on my part, but that we had such a short period of time, and the stakes were so high.”
Harris noted that Buttigieg is “a phenomenal, phenomenal public servant.”
“I think America is and would be ready for that, but when I had to make that decision with two weeks to go, you know, and maybe I was being too cautious, you know …. Maybe I was, but that’s the decision I made,” she said.
“And I’m – as with everything else in the book – I’m being very candid about that, with a great deal of sadness about also the fact that it might have been a risk,” she concluded.
Buttigieg told Politico, Friday that he was “surprised” by Harris’s remarks in the book.
“My experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you’re going to do for their lives, not on categories,” Buttigieg said. “You just have to go to voters with what you think you can do for them. Politics is about the results we can get for people and not about these other things.”
See social media’s reaction to Harris’ comments below.
