President-elect Joe Biden is sharing his thoughts about his running mate Kamala Harris.
The duo was jointly chosen to be this year’s “Person of the Year” by Time magazine. Time wrote on Twitter, “Person of the Year is not just about the year that was, but about where we’re headed.”
In an interview with Time, Biden weighed in on choosing Harris as his running mate, “She is straight as an arrow. She is really, really bright. She is tough. But yet she has a heart that understands what it’s like to be on the other side of prejudice.”
“She also was an immigrant’s daughter who was raised, in a strange way, like I was,” he continued. “We were taught that we could be anything. Don’t give up, just move, keep pushing.”
“I just found her to be someone who if, in fact, something happened to me, I knew they could take over. That’s Kamala.”
Harris also spoke with the magazine, where she said of Biden, “I can tell you many things about him with admiration and respect, including that Joe asked me to be his running mate because he understands that we have different life experiences. But he also knows — and I know, and it’s a point of pride for me — that we have an incredible amount of shared experiences and values.”
She added, “We were both raised in strong, hardworking families. We’re grounded in faith. We both have spent our entire careers in public service. I think that’s what makes ours a very full and very robust partnership.”
Harris also touched on when she received the call from Biden asking her to be his running mate.
“My team got a call that the [former] Vice President would like to speak to you. The anxiety, the tension was high. What was this call gonna be?” Harris said.
“Instead of going on as some might with their involvement with themselves, immediately [Joe] said, ‘So, you want to do this?’ He just got right to the point. That’s who Joe is. There’s no pomp and circumstance with him. He’s a straight shooter.”
In addition to “Person of the Year,” Time also named Dr. Anthony Fauci — the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House coronavirus task force — and frontline health care workers the “Guardians of the Year.”