Kamala Harris details Biden’s phone call about history-making decision to drop out of 2024 race

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Kamala Harris details Biden’s phone call about history-making decision to drop out of 2024 race

In her first interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday shared that she learned President Biden was ending his reelection bid when he called her personally to inform her.

In her sit-down interview alongside her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash that on July 21 she received a phone call from Mr. Biden while she was with her family.

That same day Mr. Biden posted a letter to social media announcing his shocking decision to end his campaign.

“I’ll give you a little too much information,” Harris said. “My family was staying with us, including my baby nieces, and we had just had pancakes.”

The family was “sitting down to do a puzzle, and the phone rang and it was Joe Biden, and he told me what he had decided to do,” Harris said. “And I asked him, ‘Are you sure?’ And he said, ‘yes.’ And that’s how I learned about it.”

The vice president did not directly answer a question about whether Mr. Biden offered his endorsement over the phone, or if she specifically asked for it.  

“He was very clear that he was going to support me,” Harris said.   

In his July 21 letter, Mr. Biden did not immediately endorse Harris, but instead did so in a separate social media post shortly after. It was with that endorsement that Harris was very quickly able to put together a coalition of support, in the process discouraging other potential candidates and halting any chance of an open Democratic primary.

Mr. Biden faced mounting pressure to drop out of the race from a growing chorus of political leaders within his own party in the weeks that followed his disastrous June 27 debate performance against former President Donald Trump. But Harris maintained unwavering public support for him, calling him “our nominee” and saying she was “proud to be Joe Biden’s running mate.”

Harris told CNN that while speaking with Mr. Biden by phone that day, her “first thought was about him, to be honest,” not about her own candidacy.

“I think history is going to show a bunch of things about Joe Biden’s presidency,” she said. “I think history is going to show that in so many ways it was transformative.”

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Faris Tanyos

Faris Tanyos is a news editor for CBSNews.com, where he writes and edits stories and tracks breaking news. He previously worked as a digital news producer at several local news stations up and down the West Coast.

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