Vice President Joe Biden said that while he wasn’t endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, he “would like to see a woman get elected” in a preview of an interview with Mic News published Monday.
When Biden was asked about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)’s claims that Clinton was unqualified for the presidency, Biden said he didn’t believe Sanders said Clinton was “not qualified because she’s a woman.”
“No, I don’t think she’s held to a higher standard,” Biden told Mic. “This country’s ready for a woman. There’s no problem. We’re going to be able to elect a woman in this country.”
A Mic reporter then asked Biden if he wanted the country to elect a woman.
“I would like to see a woman get elected,” he responded.
At that point, two people described by Mic as Biden’s staff members tried to shut down the conversation. A woman off-camera said “right” and a man said “that’s it.” (SEE LATE UPDATE BELOW)
Biden told them that it was “all right” and kept speaking to the reporter.
“The President and I are not going to endorse because we both, when we ran said, ‘Let the party decide.’ But gosh almighty, they’re both qualified,” Biden said. “Hillary’s overwhelmingly qualified to be president.”
The full Mic interview will be published Wednesday.
Watch Biden’s comments below:
Biden tells us “I’d like to see a woman elected,” staff immediately tries to end interview https://t.co/tNvcfrP1Ia pic.twitter.com/9kqZPKKkTS
— Stefan Becket (@becket) April 11, 2016
LATE UPDATE: 4:52 p.m. Mic has changed the language of its original story to say that the Biden aides who could be heard off-camera attempted to end the interview because it ran beyond the allotted time.
