Inside her First interview Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that President Biden called her personally and told her he would end his reelection bid after he was nominated as the Democratic presidential nominee.
In a roundtable discussion with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris told CNN’s Dana Bassey that she received a call from Biden on July 21 while she was with her family.
Mr Biden on the same day posted a letter He announced the shocking decision to suspend his campaign via social media.
“I’m going to give you too much information,” Harris said. “My family was with us, my nieces were with us, and we just had pancakes.”
“The family was sitting down to do the puzzle, and the phone rang and it was Joe Biden, and he told me what he was going to do,” Harris said. “And I said, ‘Are you sure?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ And that’s how I found out about it.”
The vice president did not directly answer questions about whether Mr. Biden had expressed his support in a phone call or whether Mr. Biden had specifically asked for it.
“He made it very clear that he would support me,” Harris said.
Mr. Biden did not immediately endorse Harris in his July 21 letter, but he did so shortly thereafter in a separate social media post. With that endorsement, Harris quickly built a coalition of supporters, and in the process, discouraged other potential candidates and shut down any chance of a Democratic primary.
Mr Biden has faced enormous pressure to drop out of the race in the weeks since his catastrophic event, including from a chorus of political leaders within his own party. Debate Performance on June 27th I oppose former President Donald Trump, but Harris maintained Expressing unwavering public support for him, he called him “our candidate” and said he was “proud to be Joe Biden’s running mate.”
Harris told CNN that when she spoke with Biden by phone that day, “honestly my first thought was about him” and not about her own candidacy.
“I think history will show a lot about Joe Biden’s presidency,” she said. “I think history will show that it was transformative in many ways.”
