Rachel Maddow pressed Kamala Harris about the former vice president’s claims in her book regarding the potential 2024 campaign ticket with Pete Buttigieg, had he not been gay.
Maddow, who is openly gay herself, appeared pained by Harris’s statement that Buttigieg ‘would have been an ideal partner – if I were a straight white man.’
She cited Buttigieg’s frustrated reaction and the responses of others while probing Harris but struggled to find the words for the direct question.
‘I guess I’d ask you to just elaborate on that a little bit… it’s hard to hear with you, the first woman elected vice president… to say that he couldn’t be on the ticket effectively because he was gay, is hard to hear,’ she added, prompting Harris to respond.
‘No, no, no, that’s not what I said, that he couldn’t be on the ticket because he is gay,’ Harris replied, waving her finger disapprovingly at Maddow.
Harris attempted to clarify that her reasoning was more about timing, giving a detailed response about handling Donald Trump’s reactions to their campaign.
‘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 against someone like Trump, who knows no floor… To be a black woman running for president, and as a vice presidential running mate, a gay man. With the stakes being so high, it saddened me. But I also recognized it would be a significant risk.’
Harris then attempted to defend her record on gay rights to Maddow.
Rachel Maddow pushed Kamala Harris on the former vice president’s claims in her book that she would have ran her 2024 campaign with Pete Buttigieg if he weren’t gay
Maddow, who herself is openly gay, was clearly pained with Harris having said that Buttigieg ‘would have been an ideal partner – if I were a straight white man’
‘You know, I’ve been an advocate and an ally of the LGBT community my entire life,’ she said, as Maddow nodded and appeared to allow that she wasn’t suggesting she wasn’t.
She then doubled down on the idea that there wasn’t enough time for them to game plan.
‘So it wasn’t about any prejudice on my part, but we had such a short we had such a short period of time. And the stakes were so high.’
Harris called Buttigieg a ‘phenomenal public servant’ and acknowledged she may have been too risk-averse but made the call.
‘But when I had to make that decision with two weeks to go — and maybe I was being too cautious…we should all talk about that. Maybe I was, but that’s the decision I made,’ she said.
She added that she had ‘a great deal of sadness about also, the fact that it was a risk.’
Harris made this revelation in her soon-to-be-released book ‘107 days,’ according to The Atlantic. The book provides an in-depth account of her perspective from her devastating defeat to Donald Trump.
Buttigieg, who is gay, ‘would have been an ideal partner – if I were a straight white man,’ Harris wrote in a portion of the book.
She tried to explain that it was more a matter of timing, paining her way through a lengthy answer about how Donald Trump would react to their campaign
Harris ultimately picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate instead of Buttigieg
The former vice president claims that picking a gay man would have been ‘asking a lot of America’ at the time.
‘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,’ she wrote. ‘And I think Pete also knew that – to our mutual sadness.’
Harris instead chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her vice presidential nominee. The pair would go on to lose every single battleground state to Trump and JD Vance.
The former Biden transportation secretary was at the top of Harris’ running mates list because ‘he is a sincere public servant with the rare talent of being able to frame liberal arguments in a way that makes it possible for conservatives to hear them.’
‘I love Pete,’ Harris noted. ‘I love working with Pete. He and his husband, Chasten, are friends.’
Buttigieg married his husband Chasten in 2018. The pair have adopted two children together.
Harris and Buttigieg ran against each other during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. However, both candidates dropped out before Biden secured the nomination.
Elsewhere in Maddow’s sitdown with the ex-vice president, the host was much more fawning, calling her ‘patron saint of ‘I told you so, in terms of people understanding the warnings and predictions about what Trump would be like.’
Harris also sounded off on Jimmy Kimmel’s return to ABC after he was briefly suspended, praising the ‘power of the people’ who returned him to the airwaves.
‘Talk about the power being with the people and the people making that clear with their checkbooks as it relates to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel. We saw the power of the people over the last few days, and it spoke volumes, it moved a decision in the right direction,’ she said.
She also went further in saying she should have challenged Joe Biden’s ‘reckless’ re-election campaign.
‘I realize that I have and had a certain responsibility that I should have followed through on. So when I talk about the recklessness, as much as anything, I’m talking about myself,’ she said.
She deferred when Maddow asked if Harris would run in 2028: ‘That’s not my focus right now.’
Harris’ novel ‘107 Days’ is set for release on Tuesday.
