Vice President Kamala Harris recalled the moment she got the phone call from President Biden informing her of his decision to drop out of the race — revealing that she had just finished having pancakes with her family when she received the life-altering news.
Harris, 59, described the fateful moment after insisting she has no regrets about standing with her 81-year-old boss amid a firestorm over his mental acuity.
“No, not at all” she told CNN when asked if she had any reservations now about staunchly defending Biden’s capacity to serve another four years in the White House.
Harris then revealed in her first sit-down interview since Biden dropped out how she found out she could become the next Democratic presidential nominee.
“I’ll give you a little too much information,” Harris said.
“My family was staying with us, and including my baby nieces. And we had just had pancakes,” she went on.
“We were sitting down to do a puzzle, and the phone rang, and it was Joe Biden and he told me what he had decided to do.”
Harris added: “‘I asked him, ‘Are you sure?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’”
The vice president also reflected on President Biden’s White House legacy.
“I think history is going to show that in so many ways [Biden’s presidency] was transformative, be it on what we have accomplished around finally investing in America’s infrastructure, investing in new economies and new industries, what we have done to bring our allies back together and have confidence in who we are as America,” she said.
Harris lavished praise on Biden for being “quite selfless” and putting the “American people first.” She further hailed her time in the administration as “one of the greatest honors of my career.”
Biden made clear to her on that phone call that he’d back her to be the Democratic nominee and Harris stressed that her “first thought was not about me, to be honest with you, my first thought was about him.”
The elderly commander-in-chief had announced his seismic decision to drop out of the race on July 21 following weeks of mounting pressure from Democrats in the aftermath of his fumbling debate performance against former President Donald Trump in late June, which was hosted by CNN.
Shortly after throwing in the towel, Biden threw his weight behind Harris to be the Democratic nominee for president, helping her avert an open convention. She promptly spent hours burning the phone lines to shore up support and quickly locked down the nod.
Harris had been somewhat quiet during the Democratic mutiny against Biden and kept a somewhat light public portfolio during that time, fielding few on-the-record questions from reporters — which was notably not atypical for her.
However, right after the debate, she did a TV hit and defended Biden.
While commending the incumbent president during her CNN interview, Harris also made a point of juxtaposing Biden with Trump.
“I have spent hours upon hours with him, be it in the Oval Office or the Situation Room. He has the intelligence, the commitment and the judgment and disposition that I think the American people rightly deserve in their president. By contrast, the former president has none of that,” she chided.
Biden is slated to stump with Harris on the campaign trail for the first time she her ascension in Pennsylvania on Monday after he spent almost two weeks away from the White House.
The vice president will then face off against Trump on ABC News during a Sept. 10 debate in Philadelphia.
