Former Vice President Kamala Harris sparked debate when asked why she chose not to select Pete Buttigieg as her running mate in the 2024 election.
Harris had already revealed why Biden administration's Secretary of Transportation didn't make the cut in a excerpt of her new book, 107 Days, published by The Atlantic.
Harris, who served as Vice President under Joe Biden, lost the presidential race against Republican Donald Trump on November 5, 2024.
She had been running with Minnesota governor Tim Walz.
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But in 107 Days, she admitted it would have been 'too big of a risk' for her - a Black woman - to run with a gay man, Buttigieg.
Harris wrote he 'would have been an ideal partner - if I were a straight white man," adding: "But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let's just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk. And I think Pete also knew that—to our mutual sadness."
Kamala joined Rachel Maddow on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show on Monday night (September 22), where she was asked about her comments.
"...I'd ask you to just elaborate on that a little bit. It's hard to hear...to say that he couldn't be on the ticket effectively because he was gay," Maddow broached the subject.
"No, no, no, that's not what I said," Harris hit back. "That he couldn't be on the ticket because he is gay. My point is, as I write in the book, I was clear that in 107 days, in one of the most hotly contested elections for president of the United States against someone like Donald Trump, who 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."
She added she also realized it would 'be a real risk,' adding: "I've been an advocate and an ally of the LGBT community my entire life. So it wasn't about any prejudice on my part, but that we had such a short period of time, and the stakes were so high."
She went on to call Buttigieg a 'phenomenal public servant,' adding: "But when I had to make that decision with two weeks to go - you know, maybe I was being too cautious... Maybe I was, but that's the decision I made. And I, as with everything else in the book, am being very candid about that, with a great deal of sadness about also the fact that it might have been a risk."
Responding on X, formerly Twitter, one person joked: "It wasn't about him being gay, it was actually about him being gay."
A second social media user quipped: "Not prejudice on her part, just her thinking that Democrats would be too prejudiced to vote for him."
Not everyone agreed, though, as somebody else said: "She's not being homophobic... she's being realistic this country is hateful as f**k."
A second echoed: "That’s such an eye opening and honest thing for Kamala to admit because it really highlights how much identity politics still plays into the decisions made at the highest levels of power..."
Buttigieg has since responded to the excerpt from 107 Days, and told Politico he was 'surprised' to find out that he was considered risky.
"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. "I wouldn't have run for president [in 2020] if I didn't believe that."
Topics: Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, US News, Politics, Film and TV, LGBTQ, Social Media, Twitter
Ellie Kemp