House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Wednesday said that Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) was the “best person” that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden could have picked as running mate.
Pelosi told MSNBC’s Craig Melvin in an interview Wednesday that the former prosecutor outpaced others in criteria that had little to do with her race and gender — factors which had eclipsed headlines even before Biden announced a historic decision to select Harris as the first Black and Asian-American woman to appear on a major party’s presidential ticket.
“Let’s recognize her not only as the first woman of color to be vice president, but the best possible person he could have chosen to proceed into this election and, of course, to win and serve the American people,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi’s comments come on the heels of remarks by President Donald Trump and others, who are race-baiting as a tactic for Trump’s re-election. Trump and conservative news hosts latched onto race and gender as defining attributes and the sole criteria at stake in Biden’s selection after some Democratic lawmakers called on Biden during the early primaries to select a woman of color as VP.
Hours before Biden unveiled his decision Tuesday, Trump pitied his Democratic opponent during a Fox Sports Radio broadcast, suggesting that Biden had “roped himself into, you know, a certain group of people.” Trump told show host Clay Travis that some men could be “insulted” if Biden kept with his commitment to select a woman.
Last week, Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson accused Biden of making his VP selection “exclusively” on the basis of race and gender a move that he said was “probably illegal.” In an effort to discredit Harris and others, Carlson said that “no mainstream candidate” would ordinarily consider the California senator or several of the other Black women who Biden allies had said were being vetted for the role, claiming that “all of them would be disqualified without debate.”
Trump repeatedly called Harris “nasty” in a news conference after Biden’s announcement on Tuesday and hours later told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in an interview that Harris was “disrespectful” and a “dangerous choice.”
“I don’t quite get the choice,” Trump told Hannity late Tuesday. “But we will have it out here we have a great vice president named Mike Pence and he will take care of business just like he did the last time against a different candidate.”
