Joe Biden said that he would consider Democratic presidential primary rival Elizabeth Warren as his running mate should he win the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I’d add Senator Warren to the list. I’d add all — but she’s going to be very angry at my having said that,” Biden said in an Axios on HBO interview that aired Sunday. “The question is, would she add me made to her list. You know?”
“The issue for me will be, if I’m fortunate enough to be the nominee, is who am I most comfortable with that I’m confident that if I turn over responsibility, I’m not going to be surprised,” Biden said.
Warren, a Massachusetts senator and bankruptcy law expert, has a long-held disagreement with Biden over a 2005 law that made it more difficult to file for bankruptcy. Warren advocated against the bill before she was an elected official while Biden championed the legislation.
The two candidates also disagree on healthcare. Warren advocates for a single-payer “Medicare for all” system that would eventually eliminate private insurance, while Biden argues that healthcare can be expanded without eliminating private insurance and Obamacare and that “Medicare for all,” estimated to cost $32 trillion over 10 years, is too pricey and not feasible.
During his “No Malarkey” eight-day bus tour through Iowa last week, Biden said he would consider recent presidential dropout California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate.
“She is capable of being president or vice president or on the Supreme Court or attorney general. Her capacity is unlimited,” Biden said in Ames, Iowa, on Wednesday.
Later on the bus tour, Biden said that it would be “presumptuous” to choose a running mate before he is the nominee but said there are a lot of good options.
“Look, there’s some extremely talented people running. And I think a number of them are qualified not only to be president or qualified to be vice president, secretary of state,” Biden said at a campaign stop in Oelwein, Iowa, on Saturday when a voter asked if he would make Harris his attorney general.
“There’s an awful lot of incredibly talented women that are out there. I can think of four senators right off the top of my head who would make a good vice president of the United States or anything else. I can think of a group of folks who in fact are out there that don’t — aren’t even in the United States Senate, mayors and governors who are women and men,” Biden said.
