WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Vice President Kamala Harris says she would have picked Pete Buttigieg as her running mate last year but America wasn’t ready for the pairing, according to an excerpt of her new book.
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Harris writes in an excerpt of “107 Days” published Wednesday in The Atlantic that former President Joe Biden’s transportation secretary was her “first choice,” adding that he “would have been an ideal partner — if I were a straight white man.”
“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 writes.
Her thoughts on selecting a running mate come as potential 2028 contenders begin traveling the U.S. in the early days of the second Trump administration.
In the book excerpt, she writes about her love of working with Buttigieg and her friendship with him and his husband, but that the two of them on the Democratic ticket would have been too risky.
“And I think Pete also knew that — to our mutual sadness,” she writes.
It wasn’t immediately clear at what point she decided against Buttigieg, a former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and former intelligence officer in the Navy Reserves. Buttigieg emerged as a national political figure during his 2020 presidential run in which he finished atop the Iowa caucuses.
The Associated Press didn’t immediately hear back from a spokesperson for Buttigieg.
After Biden dropped out of the presidential race in July 2024 following a disastrous debate performance, Harris was left to head up the Democratic ticket.
She picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate after his attack line against former President Donald Trump and his running mate, then-Ohio Sen. JD Vance — “These guys are just weird” — spread widely. They ultimately lost.
Harris’ book, whose title is referencing the length of her condensed presidential campaign, is set to be published by Simon & Schuster on Tuesday.
She’s the problem, it didn’t matter who her running mate was
Yeah…..Tim Walz worked out very well.
So instead of the gay guy she picked the tampons in boys bathrooms weirdo.
Of course America wants a gay Mickey Mouse as VP.
Choosing Tim Walz as her running mate was probably her single biggest mistake she made during the campaign. She made plenty of mistakes and messed up all the time but her biggest was thinking that Walz can somehow help her win the White House
She could have won with Josh Shapiro on her ticket. Though why he would go with her is a question. Bascially, her poor choices and general unsuitability gave Trump the presidency on a silver platter.
Buttigieg would have been the perfect yin to her yang; he has no toxic masculinity. Leftists are not intimidated by him.
Why is coconut tree girl still taking? Does ANYBODY care?
She didn’t write this book, she word saladed it to an anonymous writer who then cut and pasted her nonsense to make it rational, just as CBS did.
Biden’s job insurance thinks that her running mate was the problem