MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow pressed Kamala Harris for “bluntly” admitting in her memoir that choosing Pete Buttigieg as her 2024 running mate would have been “too big of a risk” – a calculation Maddow suggested was sidelining him “because he was gay.”
In 107 Days, her memoir of the presidential campaign, Harris recounts the frantic process to select a running mate as she prepared to run against Donald Trump.
She discloses that Buttigieg was her “first choice” for the ticket, writing that “he would have been an ideal partner – if I were a straight white man,” but that he was “too big of a risk.” She ultimately turned to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz instead.
During an appearance on MSNBC promoting the book on Monday, however, Maddow, who is gay, pressed the former vice president to “elaborate,” adding: “To say that he couldn’t be on the ticket effectively because he was gay, it’s hard to hear.”
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