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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Biden Chooses Kamala Harris as Running Mate. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired August 11, 2020 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:00:23]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Pamela Brown, in for Jake Tapper today.

We begin this hour with breaking news. Joe Biden has decided on a running mate. Sources tell CNN he has revealed his choice to top advisers. And the announcement could come as soon as today, really any minute now, potentially this hour.

We will have to see.

Moments ago, we also learned the Biden campaign has now informed some of the contenders of his decision. And Congresswoman Karen Bass was told by Biden her himself that she is not the pick, three sources say.

Let's start with seeing CNN's Jeff Zeleny.

So, Jeff, what are you learning about this decision?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Pamela, good afternoon.

Joe Biden, of course, has been looking for a running mate of his own for about three or four months or so. And we are told this afternoon that he has indeed made a decision on his choice.

He informed just a handful of small -- a small handful of advisers earlier today that he had indeed settled on his choice. And that sets into motion the rollout plan. And what this means is, it is going to be a historic choice, whoever he decides.

Why? Because he pledged some five months ago that he would pick a woman as his running mate. So, whoever he decides is going to be the third woman in U.S. history to be a running mate on a major party's ticket. So that is indeed going to be historic, but, more than that, Joe Biden I am told, as he has had one-on-one conversations, face to face in many cases, some virtual conversations in other cases, with several contenders about the kind of governing partner he is indeed looking for.

This, of course, is a job he knows something about. He was the running mate, the vice president for eight years for Barack Obama, of course, but as the specific type of running mate that he was where he had a hand in most decisions. And he had a weekly lunch, of course, with the president.

So he was indeed a governing partner. So that, I'm told, is -- was a driving decision here, not someone who can maybe help him with the presidential campaign coming up, but it's someone who can help him with the challenges going forward.

So the leading contenders, we believe, are California Senator Kamala Harris, as well as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who flew to Delaware to meet with Biden just a week or so ago. She, of course, has taken a lead in coronavirus in the state of Michigan.

Also among the serious contenders were former National Security Adviser in the Obama administration and the U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. So those are three of the contenders, as well as many others. But the Biden campaign looked at some 11 women overall, members of the House of Representatives, senators, governors as well.

And that is where he was drawing this pool from. So, certainly, it is going to be a historic choice when he makes it. He's going to reveal this through social media. Of course, that's how the campaign wants to drive some attention onto this. And then later, he's going to have a fund-raiser and appear for the first time by video, at least, with his running mate.

And, Pamela, this is all coming into just days ahead of the Democratic Convention, which is starting next week. It was scheduled to be in Milwaukee, but it's going to be a virtual convention.

But this running mate only has about a week to get ready for that, because next Wednesday evening is their big speech to the country, their big moment to introduce themselves.

BROWN: Right.

ZELENY: But, here and now, we do now that Joe Biden has made a decision, and he will reveal that shortly -- Pamela.

BROWN: Yes, timing is certainly running out for him to make this big announcement today. Again, we're waiting to find out any moment now. Thank you so much, Jeff Zeleny.

I want to bring in Dana Bash now for more on this and the rest of our panel, including David Chalian, Nia-Malika Henderson, Gloria Borger.

Dana, starting with you.

Like I said, there's been a lot of anticipation for this decision. Joe Biden clearly has been very involved, agonizing over who he is going to pick, because this is really a critical decision for his candidacy. How so?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: In so many ways. It's always a critical decision for the presumptive nominee on who he wants to -- or she last time around -- wants to pick for the running mate. And, as Jeff said, the thing that is different now and maybe over the

last few cycles than it had been in the past is -- especially now -- is that it's not so much for him about geography or about winning a state or about the politics of the map.

It's about who he is going to -- who he wants to be his partner in governing. It is who he feels comfortable with in governing. And it is the reality that he would be the oldest president ever elected, if he is elected, and has to make sure that the person he -- the woman he chooses will be ready to go on day one.

And so that is that is no small thing. And he recognizes that. I went up and interviewed the former vice president in May, the end of May, and we talked about this.

[16:05:05]

And you could see it was already weighing on him, Pamela. And now, over the past several months, it's been even more so, because of all of the factors that he understands goes into this.

I mean, the other thing that is perhaps obvious, but it's worth saying, is that he has the experience of being a vice president for two terms, and having a very successful partnership.

So, he's trying to emulate that. He's trying to find that magic again. And it's not easy, because nobody knew, including Joe Biden and Barack Obama, that they would be the kind of partners that they ended up being, because, when they first met, they didn't know each other very well.

BROWN: Right.

They didn't know each other very well. But, as you point out, chemistry is very important to him, that personal chemistry, a governing partner.

But also, David Chalian, this is a really important moment in history. How does the climate that America is in right now play into this?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, certainly, it plays into this sort of pressure campaign we have seen put on the Biden team from African-Americans inside certain quarters of the Democratic Party establishment, saying, you can't look at where we are as a country right now, in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing, and this reignited quest for social justice. and not include that moment in this kind of selection process.

So, that's one sort of contextual piece of this.

But, Pamela, it's -- the other thing that we have to remember about this pick, we don't get to see presidential candidates make decisions, right? Presidents have to make decisions all the time. But this is the one sort of decision that we get to see, high-profile decision, that we get to see a presidential candidate who's not in office at the moment make. And what that tells us about the decision-making process, the kind of people he's looking to have around him, what -- how that informs the public about how Joe Biden handles a big moment like this, there aren't many opportunities in a presidential campaign to convey that.

And this is one of them.

BROWN: And, Nia-Malika, given the context that David Chalian just laid out, clearly, the pressure is on Joe Biden to select a black woman as his running mate. Does he risk blowback if he doesn't do so?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, we saw what happened, really, when Gretchen Whitmer was seeming to be someone who he was seriously considering. And it looks like he was doing that up until the very end. We still don't know whether or not she's going to be the pick.

You did see a kind of renewed push from folks in the African-American sort of Democratic wing of the country and in the political spectrum essentially say to Joe Biden, if you don't pick a black woman, you will lose the election.

And this was about 100 or so black men who released that open letter to the Joe Biden campaign. And that was on top of what we saw in "The Washington Post," prominent black women Democrats saying, it's time for a black woman, and it was about representation. It was about the fact that the fortunes of lots of politicians, Terry McAuliffe, Doug Jones in Alabama, tied to black women.

They showed up for Democrats in those instances, and put them over the top, so black women in this party saying to the party leadership that the leadership should now reflect the power of black women. And so that's what you have seen over these last many weeks.

Listen, Joe Biden kind of put himself in this box when he announced back in March that he would pick a woman. It's not really clear whether or not he regrets doing that. Some people cheered. Some people said, well, listen, this kind of is like this is a set-aside in some ways, and maybe the person who comes in will be looked at more as sort of an affirmative-action pick.

But, listen, so after he did that, you had people lobbying for their picks, and African-American women particularly saying, it's time for an African-American woman. We don't know who it's going to be. We will see. We do know that some of the finalists were obviously African- American women, like Karen Bass, Val Demings, Susan Rice, Kamala Harris.

So we will see what he ends up doing. We should find out any minute.

BROWN: We should find out soon.

And we should note that one of them has actually been called. Karen Bass, Congresswoman Karen Bass, as we have reported, was called and told that she was not the V.P. pick.

But, Gloria, as this all plays out, look, we all know that there have been V.P. picks that have gone over better than others in the past.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

BROWN: What are some of the pitfalls of this pick?

BORGER: Well, I mean, the one that comes to mind -- and when David was talking about, this is how you judge a potential president, by this decision and how he makes decisions, the one that comes to mind to me, of course, is John McCain picking Sarah Palin.

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We all recall that he wanted Joe Lieberman, but Republicans said to him, if you have Joe Lieberman, you're going to have a walkout at your own Republican Convention. And then he did a Hail Mary and decided that he was going to pick Sarah Palin.

And that didn't go over so well. And it told a lot of people a lot of things about John McCain's feelings, judgment, what he thought he needed, what could help him.

And I think, with Biden, you will see some of that, of course. But because Biden has been vice president, as my colleagues are saying, there is such a difference here. And my sources are telling me, look, the first thing he's telling people is, I don't want to do any harm.

Sarah Palin did a lot of harm. First thing -- he's running ahead. He doesn't want to hurt his campaign right now. He wants loyalty, above all else. As Dana was pointing out, he had a good relationship with Barack Obama.

One of the reasons was that, even though Biden disagreed with him an awful lot, particularly on foreign policy, he kept his mouth shut when Biden made a decision -- I mean, when Obama made a decision, and saluted him and said, OK, that's it.

And then the other thing is comfort level. Biden is somebody who believes he can judge people, size them up, feel like -- understand whether he's going to be able to get along with that person and trust that person. And I think that's why this process has taken some time, because I guarantee you those conversations, knowing Joe Biden, have gone on for a long time.

BROWN: Yes.

BORGER: Yes.

BROWN: I mean, we thought we would be finding out about this August 1, right?

BORGER: Yes.

BROWN: And here we are...

BORGER: Right.

BROWN: ... just a few days away from the Democratic Convention starting, so lots to discuss.

Everyone, stand by.

We're going to continue to follow this breaking news, Joe Biden set to announce his running mate at any moment.

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BROWN: And we are back with breaking news. A source tells CNN that Stacey Abrams, the former top Democrat in the Georgia house has been told she is not the pick for Joe Biden's running mate.

We have also learned that Congresswoman Karen Bass was also told that she is out.

So I want to go straight to CNN -- Arlette in Wilmington, Delaware.

And, Arlette, look, the list is whittling down minute by minute here.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it certainly is. And Joe Biden has made up his mind about this decision. There is actually an email that has gone out that says Joe Biden has selected Kamala Harris as his running mate.

BROWN: Wow.

SAENZ: There's actually an entire Biden logo -- Biden/Harris logo at the top of this email.

Now, Biden ran against Kamala Harris during the Democratic primary. You know, they had that contentious debate moment. But ultimately, according to this email I can read you a little bit from it. It says: Folks, you make a lot of important decisions as president, but the first one is who you selected to be your vice president. I decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Donald Trump and Mike Pence and then to leading this nation starting in January 2021.

BROWN: All right. Historic news coming from Arlette. Thank you so much.

Let's go straight to our panel.

Dana Bash, this is -- this is history, Dana. If you're there, we are learning from Arlette, Kamala Harris has been selected as Joe Biden's running mate, making her the first black female vice presidential pick and first Asian female vice presidential pick. Historic.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And that is so important. To stop, take a breath and take -- and take a moment to mark this moment.

You are absolutely right to do so, Pamela, because this is the third time we have seen a woman be picked by a man as a running mate. It is the first time we have seen a woman of color. And it is a -- it is a moment in history. It is a moment that everybody is going to remember whether or not Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, that ticket wins or not.

This is something that Vice President Biden has been obviously pressured to do. But it is also something that he has clearly looked at based on what he wants his legacy to be. Remember, he was the vice president to the first African-American president. He is somebody who is only the presumptive Democratic nominee because of the support of African-Americans and people of color. He was nowhere in the primary process until South Carolina with all of its African-American demographics, they're the ones who brought him back to life and ultimately made him the nominee.

And he -- remember, it was with CNN on March 15th in our debate, he told us he was going to pick a woman and now we know that woman is Kamala Harris.

It is -- it is a big moment in American history. And I just want to say that as we were talking about leading up to this, this was not an easy decision for Joe Biden to make on who he was going to pick for so many reasons. The fact that he chose Kamala Harris who was his rival but not just his rival, somebody who really upset him in a very visceral way during the very first debate by going after him about his record on busing.

And the fact that he overcame that and decided that she is the best partner for him not just in the campaign but if he becomes president, you can be sure that is going to be part of the messaging that the Biden campaign is going to put out there. That shows what kind of a person he is and a leader that he is that he can put that behind him. Because I can tell you other people will tell you too he was really hurt, he was really upset and he was really angry. But he's putting that behind him.

BROWN: OK. And we're just learning about this tweet from Joe Biden.

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I think we're going to put this up on the screen here shortly saying: I have the great honor to announce that I've picked Kamala Harris, a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country's finest public servants as my running mate. This is a historic decision.

Just to remind our viewers: she served as district attorney in San Francisco, Attorney General in California before coming -- becoming a senator in California, and a competitor against Joe Biden during the presidential race. And now, Jeff Zeleny, she has been selected as his VP pick.

ZELENY: Has indeed. This is something that really has been I guess the conventional wisdom all along that Kamala Harris, the senator from California, has, you know, been seen in the eyes of many friends of Joe Biden, many Democrats as the person who fit many of the qualifications. First and foremost, someone who has been on the national stage, someone who's been tested as a candidate. Yes, she did not win the primary. In fact, she had to end her campaign much sooner than she thought.

But she was tested on the national stage. And that is something that Joe Biden knows how important it is. He ran for president, of course, his third time so he knew he needed someone who had been tested in that way. So, I am told that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will appear for the first time together virtually tomorrow at a fundraiser for supporters, that will be the first time we see both of them.

But reading this email from Joe Biden that he sent out to supporters, just a short time ago, Pamela, it also says something else. He talks about how she knew his son Beau. They were both attorney generals at the same time, she in California, Beau Biden, of course, in Delaware who died of brain cancer in 2015.

And he says this: I first met Kamala through my son Beau. They were both attorney general at the same time. He had enormous respect for her and her work. I thought about that a lot as I made this decision.

So as Dana was talking about that moment from last summer on the debate stage in Miami when Senator Harris really tried to stop the former vice president and ask questions about his long record in the Senate on race, and she talked about his opposition to a busing. Yes, Biden was hurt by that. But he also says I don't hold grudges.

And I have to say, Pamela, it reminds me very much of again 12 years ago when Joe Biden was picked by Barack Obama. Those two had been at odds with each other right before the beginning of the Obama campaign, Joe Biden called Obama clean and articulate. Obama forgave him. Senator Obama at the time forgave him and picked him because he thought he was the best choice.

So, that I'm told has guided Joe Biden's decision through all of this. Now going forward, this is a historic decision without question. Senator Harris, of course, is going to have her record dissected. Republicans have been looking at this for a long time, her record as a prosecutor in California, as district attorney in San Francisco, her vote she has taken as well. But this is something that is going to hopefully in the eyes of Joe Biden launch him forward here to make a governing partner.

But the election is still on so they cannot think of governing partner yet. There's, of course, much of the campaign left. But this without question is the biggest decision Joe Biden has made in his long political life. He clearly felt comfortable with her and we'll certainly see how this partnership unfolds -- Pamela.

BROWN: Yeah, he took a lot of time to make this important decision today, Nia-Malika Henderson.

ZELENY: Right.

BROWN: Kamala Harris is among the best known black woman in politics right now. This is a significant choice. Tell us what this means to women, to black voters, to supporters of Joe Biden.

HENDERSON: Well, it is a long time coming. In some ways it seems inevitable because people have been talking about this possible pairing for almost about a year. There was an article in "Politico" about a Biden/Harris ticket in May of 2019. And it's kind of been a thing among the chattering classes.

But if you think about the long history of women in this country, of black women in this country, trying to have a voice, black women trying to be included as women in the nineteenth amendment, you think about somebody like Fannie Lou Hamer who in 1964, in 1968 had to beg the Democratic Party for black women in Mississippi to have a voice.

And then you fast forward to 1972, Shirley Chisholm launching her bid to the White House in January after she lost that one of the reasons that she wanted to run was to really expand the imagination and expand America's imagination about who could be a president, who could lead.

And so, now, we have Kamala Harris almost 50 years after Shirley Chisholm. If you are a black woman who ends up in this position, the kind of hard work you have to do to first be in those positions in California, attorney general and then senator.

She is only the second black woman to be senator in this country, the enormous amount of hard work and focus and grit she has done over these last many decades in her career to get he focus she has done to get to this point.

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And so, yes, this is an historic day. I imagine women around the country, particularly women who are upset about what happened in 2016 with Hillary Clinton not winning that campaign is a day that I think a lot of women are looking -- you know, looked forward to for a long time. We'll obviously see what happens in November.

But, again, this is -- I think this will expand people's ideas about who can lead, right? If you think about black women in leadership, not many black women in leadership even in your own kind of lives in offices, it is very rare that black women accede to positions of power. And so, for this happen, we should not take this moment for granted. We should not think of it as inevitable because it was a long time coming with a lot of fighting by black women in particular and women just in general.

And I think if you think about Kamala Harris, she herself a fighter, right? Joe Biden certainly didn't like what she did in that debate. But it proved that she was a fighter.

If you think about the viral moments she's had with people like Jeff Sessions, people like Gina Haspel. It was about being a fighter and being aggressive. And I think if you're Joe Biden, that's one of the qualities you want to see in a partner.

BROWN: Just a remarkable moment. Kamala Harris has been selected as Joe Biden's vice presidential partner, running partner. And she is the immigrant of Jamaican and Indian parents, really remarkable rise as Nia-Malika had pointed out there. And as you pointed out, Nia, she is a fighter. And recently, we sort of saw this play out. It seemed as though the subtext of what she said talking about ambition. Because there had been reporting out there that some of Joe Biden's allies thought that she was too ambitious, where that and she was speaking recently and she said, look, people who say that, they're just used to what has been, not what could be, and really took that criticism on head on.

She didn't directly say she was talking about Joe Biden's allies who were critical of her. But that appeared to be what she was hinting at, right, Nia?

HENDERSON: I think that's right. She was really responding to there were a lot of leaks that came out of this election process with people who were Joe Biden allies saying that somebody like Kamala Harris rubbed people the wrong way or she was too ambitious, and it's something I think that particularly women who were trying to be in positions of power, those are the kinds of comments and criticisms they often give.

You think about Geraldine Ferraro. Barbara Bush called her a not so nice word when she was the running mate of Walter Mondale. You think about somebody like Sarah Palin, people openly wondered how will she take care of her kids as she's in the White House, if she was to win?

So, this is the kind of criticisms and the kind of scrutiny that women get that men don't get. Then there's a double layer when you add on a person of color and race and ethnic background as we'll see with Kamala Harris. So, I think, you know, she is a singular person and she has been vocal about the unfair ways in which women are treated. And in this instance, obviously, a woman of color has to deal with that double scrutiny of both race and gender.

BROWN: All right. I want to go to Gloria Borger for now on more of the historical context of this pick -- Gloria.

BORGER: Well, it is historical, as all of my colleagues have been talking about.

And let me just say this. It's also a moment for Joe Biden and for the country. I know Joe Biden in the past has talked about being a bridge to the next generation. And what we see here is not so much a bridge but somebody who is embracing the next generation who has said I'm going to be transformational by choosing a black woman as my vice president.

And, by the way, in doing this, the Democratic Party is sort of saying, you're the next likely nominee no matter when it comes, because you've served as vice president should they win. And I think what Biden is doing is a larger thing. It's not a bridge anymore. This has become more of a transformation. He is saying the black voters in this country, I am listening to you. He is saying the young voters who want to see something different, I am listening to you.

And he's also got a partner here, I would argue she's been tough on crime, but she understands the issues and she is going to have to deal with police reform, criminal justice reform, and just as he did the Recovery Act.

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