Biden picks woman for running mate
US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden named California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate in the November 3 presidential elections.
Biden’s choice for the 55-year-old former California attorney general of Indian-Jamaican heritage made her the first black woman and Asian American in the role.
She was previously Biden’s rival but endorsed him in March this year to challenge incumbent Republican President Donald Trump in the November 3 election.
B i d e n a n n o u n c e d t h e n o m i n a t i o n o f Harris in a tweet on Tuesday describing her as “a fearless fighter and one of America’s finest public servants. He noted how she had worked closely with his late son, Beau, when she was California’s attorney general.
“I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse. “I was proud then, and I’m proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign,” Biden tweeted.
In her tweet later Harris said: “Biden can Namibia snubs German genocide reparations unify the American people because he’s spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he’ll build an America that lives up to our ideals.
“I’ m honoured to join him as our party’s nominee for vice-president, and do what it takes to make him our commander-in-chief.”
In his reaction , President Trump told reporters: “She’s a person that’s told many, many stories that weren’t true,” adding that Harris was “very, very nasty” and “horrible” to Biden during the Democratic primary debates.
BBC also quoted the Trump campaign as having described her nomination as proof that Biden is “an empty shell being filled with the extreme agenda of the radicals on the left”.
In March, Biden pledged to name a woman as running mate following growing calls to choose a black woman at a time when America was embroiled in social unrest over police brutality against African Americans, a key voting bloc to the Democratic Party.
Harris has frequently urged police reform amid nationwide anti-racism protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd, an African American who was killed by a white police officer on May 25.
She is the third woman to ever be nominated as US vice-presidential candidate after Republican Sarah Palin in 2008 and Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 although neither ended up on the winning ticket.
Meanwhile, Biden and Harris were scheduled to unveil their joint policy in Wilmington, Delaware on moving America forward as we went to press yesterday at noon.