In her first interview Since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that she learned President Biden would be ending his re-election campaign when he personally called her to inform her.
In her interview with her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash that she received a phone call from Mr. Biden on July 21 while she was with her family.
That same day, Mr. Biden said posted a letter on social media announcing his shocking decision to end his campaign.
“I’m going to give you a little too much information,” Harris said. “My family was staying with us, including my baby nieces, and we had just had pancakes.”
The family “was sitting down and the phone rang and it was Joe Biden, and he told me what he had decided to do,” Harris said. “And I asked him, ‘Are you sure?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ And that’s how I found out.”
The vice president did not directly answer a question about whether Biden had given his endorsement by phone or whether she had specifically asked for it.
“He made it very clear that he would support me,” Harris said.
In his July 21 letter, Mr. Biden did not immediately endorse Harris, but did so shortly thereafter in a separate social media post. With that endorsement, Harris was able to quickly build a coalition of support, discouraging other potential candidates and ending any chance of an open Democratic primary.
Biden faced mounting pressure to withdraw from the race from a growing chorus of political leaders within his own party in the weeks following his disastrous Debate presentation June 27 against former President Donald Trump. But Harris persisted her unwavering public support for him, calling him “our candidate” and saying she was “proud to be Joe Biden’s running mate.”
When Bash asked her if she regretted the way she defended Biden’s ability to serve another four years, she replied, “No, not at all.”
Harris told CNN that when she spoke to Biden on the phone that day, her “first thought, honestly, was about him” and not her own candidacy.
“I think history will show a lot of things about Joe Biden’s presidency,” she said. “I think history will show that it was transformative in so many ways.”
