Kamala Harris says she is saddened by the fact that she considered picking a gay man as her running mate in the 2024 presidential race to be too great a risk.
The former vice president joined Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show Monday night to discuss her new book, 107 Days, about her historic presidential campaign. In the book, Harris reveals that then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was her first choice to be her running mate. But, she writes, she felt her campaign was “already asking a lot of America” given her race, gender, and the fact that she is married to a Jewish man.
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Kamala Harris wanted Pete Buttigieg to be her running mate but didn’t think America could handle it
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While she praised Buttigieg as “a sincere public servant with the rare talent of being able to frame liberal arguments in a way that makes it possible for conservatives to hear them,” she wrote that she ultimately decided that an openly gay vice presidential candidate would have been “too big of a risk” in such a consequential election.
During their conversation, Maddow asked Harris about that revelation, noting that it is “hard to hear” that Harris felt Buttigieg “couldn’t be on the ticket effectively because he is gay.”
Harris clarified that she never said Buttigieg couldn’t be her running mate because he is gay.
“My point, 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,” she explained, adding that the GOP nominee “knows no floor.”
“To be a Black woman running for President of the 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 said.
Harris went on to note that she has been an LGBTQ+ ally all her life. “So, it wasn’t about any prejudice on my part,” she said, “but we had such a short period of time, and the stakes were so high.”
She again praised Buttigieg as a “phenomenal public servant.”
“I think America is and would be ready for [a gay VP candidate]. But when I had to make that decision with two weeks to go — and maybe I was being too cautious… We should all talk about that. Maybe I was, but that’s the decision I made,” she continued. “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.”
After Harris’ account of her decision in 107 Days made headlines last week, Buttigieg responded that he was “surprised” by her calculation, adding that the two never talked about her concerns.
“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,” he said.
Citing both former President Barack Obama winning Indiana in the 2008 election and his own two terms as mayor of South Bend, Buttigieg added that “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.”
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