Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are opening up about their ticket, and the diversity they are working to represent. The pair sat down for their first joint interview since officially accepting their nominations at this year’s Democratic National Convention, and Harris got candid about her historic run for VP.
Biden and Harris — who previously ran against each other earlier in the primary election — have put their ideological differences aside to work together to unseat Donald Trump as President. Harris had nothing but appreciation for Biden’s bold choice to choose her as VP when they spoke with David Muir and Robin Roberts as part of a 20/20 special interview on Sunday.
“You know, we talk about what it means to be progressive. Joe really walks the talk,” Harris shared. “I’ll remind everyone that Joe was one of the first Democrats to speak out in terms of LGBTQ rights and equality. He just did it.”
“Joe, selecting a woman of color to be his vice president, what an audacious move,” Harris said, marveling at the “audacity of Joe Biden, to actually just make that decision and then follow through on it?”
When asked if he felt pressured to select a Black woman to be his VP, Biden said the decision wasn’t based on pressure, but out of a desire for government to be truly representative.
“What I do think is that the government should look like the people, look like the country, and 51 percent of the people in this country are women,” Biden said. “In order to be able to succeed, you’ve got to be dealt in across the board.”
“I cannot understand and fully appreciate what it means to walk in her shoes, to be an African-American woman, with an Indian-American background, the child of immigrants,” Biden added. “She can’t assume exactly what it’s like to walk in my shoes. What we do know is we have the same value set.”
According to Harris, she’s learned through her talks with Biden that the former vice president “has a deep sense of awareness and knowledge about racial disparities, inequities, and systematic racism.”
“Joe speaks the words and actually knows how to say the words ‘Black lives matter.’ Contrary to what the president of the United States, the current president of the United States does, which is to stoke hate and division full-time and has never spoken those words, and will never speak the words ‘Black lives matter,'” Harris said. “You can talk to Joe. He has been outspoken on those issues. And I know where his heart is.”
During the hour-long interview, Roberts brought up Biden’s controversial interview with Charlamagne tha God on The Breakfast Club in May, when Biden said, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or for Trump, then you ain’t black.”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Biden admitted to Roberts. “But I was trying to make the point that [Trump] is a man who spent his entire career denigrating African-Americans. The truth is, there’s a fundamental difference between Donald Trump and me on the issue of race across the board.”
“I’m not gonna try to divide people,” Biden added. “It’s all about bringing people together.”
