Former Vice President and 2020 hopeful Joe Biden isn’t mincing words when it comes to working across the aisle. Unfortunately for him, the other side isn’t mincing words either.
At a campaign stop in Exeter, New Hampshire on Monday, the 77-year-old addressed the possibility of a split party ticket.
It started when a woman in the audience addressed Biden’s upcoming plans. “Our 21-year-old son said the other night, ‘I wonder if Joe Biden would consider choosing a Republican as a running mate?'”
Biden responded, “The answer is I would, but I can’t think of one now. Let me explain that. You know there’s some really decent Republicans that are out there still, but here’s the problem right now…they’ve got to step up.”
In addition to a possible GOP running mate, Biden has said he’d prefer to choose a person “of color and/or a different gender.” This could potentially open the door for a ticket with California Sen. Kamala Harris or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, should they be interested.
“Look, Sen. Harris has the capacity to be anything she wants to be,” Biden told CNN on Dec. 5. “I mean it sincerely. I talked to her yesterday. She’s solid, she can be president someday herself, she can be vice president, she could go on to be a Supreme Court justice, she could be attorney general. I mean she has enormous capability.”
“Whoever I would pick for vice president, and there’s a lot of qualified women, there’s a lot of qualified African-Americans. There really truly are,” Biden said Monday. “There’s a plethora of really qualified people. Whomever I would pick were I fortunate enough to be your nominee, I’d pick somebody who was simpatico with me, who knew what I, what my priorities were and knew what I wanted to. We could disagree on tactic, but strategically we’d have to be in the exact same page.”
The public running mate revelation came just three days after Biden rebuked the idea of testifying in the Donald Trump impeachment trial to be held at an as yet undisclosed date in the Senate.
“This guy [Trump] violated the Constitution,” Biden told the Des Moines Register. “He said it in the driveway of the White House. He acknowledged he asked for help.”
It was a rocky weekend for Biden. He was heckled in Milford, New Hampshire the night before the Exeter stop with one man shouting, “pervert” and “quid pro Joe.” The heckler pushed, “Excuse me, Mr. Biden! Excuse me, Mr. Biden — how much money did you make in Ukraine with your son?”
To which Biden replied, “I released 21 years of my tax returns. Your guy hasn’t released one. What’s he hiding?”
Watch the video embedded below and here.
Things can only look up from here, right?