Joe Biden said Monday he would consider putting a Republican on his ticket if he won the Democratic nomination in 2020.
During a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Biden told voters he ‘can’t think of one right now,’ but could cross the political aisle for his No. 2.
‘Our 21-year-old son said the other night, ‘I wonder if Joe Biden would consider choosing a Republican as a running mate,’ a woman in the first primary voting state told the former vice president, adding he would ‘have to pull out all the stop’ if he won the party’s nomination.
‘The answer is I would, but I can’t think of one now,’ Biden replied to the woman. ‘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.’
Joe Biden said Monday he would consider choosing a Republican running mate if he won the Democratic nomination but said he ‘can’t think of one’ member of the GOP he would chose right now
At a rally in Exeter, New Hampshire, a woman told Biden he would have to ‘pull out all the stops’ if he won the nomination before asking if he would run with someone from the other side of the aisle
Biden, as the front runner Democratic candidate, has been asked several times about potential prospects for his vice president should he be the one to take on Trump next year.
He has also offered clues as to who he would pick from the Democratic side of the political aisle.
The 2020 candidate has mentioned potentially running alongside current competitor Elizabeth Warren, who sometimes bests him in polls, and Kamala Harris, who was in the race until she dropped earlier this month.
Right after she dropped out, Biden said he ‘of course’ would consider her as his running mate.
‘Look, Senator Harris has the capacity to be anything she wants to be. I mean it sincerely,’ Biden told reporters as he boarded his campaign bus for his No Malarkey tour through Iowa.
‘I talked to her yesterday,’ he continued. ‘She is solid. She can be president someday herself. She can be the vice president. She can go on to be a Supreme Court justice. She can be an attorney general. She has enormous capability.’
He has always floated Stacey Abrams, who failed her bid to become governor of Georgia.
Biden has also claimed he would want to run with someone ‘of color and/or a different gender.’
Biden has said he wants to run with either a woman or minority individual. He has floated former 2020 Democratic candidate Kamala Harris (left) as his No. 2 and has also said he would consider Elizabeth Warren (right), who is still in the primary race and sometimes bests Biden in polls
‘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. There’s a plethora of really qualified people,’ Biden said in Exeter on Monday.
‘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,’ he continued. ‘We could disagree on tactic, but strategically we’d have to be in the exact same page.’
Biden made the comments as part of a campaign tour through New Hampshire more than a month before the Democratic debate there.
The New Hampshire debate will be held in New Hampshire on Feb. 7.
At one of his rallies in the state, a group of hecklers disrupted the event, calling him a ‘pervert’ and chanting ‘Quid Pro Joe.’
The 2020 presidential hopeful shouted back, ‘This is not a Trump rally,’ as he sought to bring order to the event in Milford on Sunday night.
One of the hecklers then claimed he wasn’t a Trump supporter as he shrieked back: ‘Don’t touch kids, you pervert!’
Biden seemed to shrug off the allegation before engaging with those chanting ‘Quid Pro Joe,’ unwilling to allow the slur about his links to Ukraine.
Joe Biden called back, ‘This is not a Trump rally,’ as he sought to bring order to the event in Milford, New Hampshire, on Sunday night
‘I’ve released 21 years of my tax returns, how many has yours? What’s he hiding?’ Biden shouted back at the heckler.
They had appeared to reference the former Vice Presidents’ ties to eastern Europe, as referenced by President Donald Trump’s July 25 phone call to President Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The accusation leveled by Trump, that Biden had threatened to cut off loan guarantees unless the Ukraine replace its prosecutor general in 2016, is currently at the center of the ongoing impeachment scandal.
He has also been forced to address claims of unwanted contact with women in the past.
Earlier this year he said: ‘Social norms have begun to change. They’ve shifted. The boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset, and I get it. I get it. I hear what they’re saying. I’ll be much more mindful.’
Biden’s ferocious encounter in New Hampshire come as he seeks to overtake Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttgieg, who he currently trails in the state, according to RealClearPolitics.
He appeared to attempt an appeal to the center-left of the party on Saturday, saying he would consider nominating former President Barack Obama to the US Supreme Court.
Joe Biden, the front runner for the 2020 Democratic nomination, appeared at a campaign event in Washington, Iowa, on Saturday (left). When asked if he would nominate former president Barack Obama (right) to the Supreme Court, Biden said: ‘If he’d take it, yes’
An attendee asked if he would nominate Obama to sit on the highest court in the country at an event in Washington, Iowa.
In response, Biden replied: ‘If he’d take it, yes.’
If Obama is nominated – and confirmed by the Senate – it would make him only the second president ever to sit as a justice on the Supreme Court.
The first, and only, person to do so is William Howard Taft who served as president from 1909 to 1913.
In 1921, President Warren Harding appointed Taft as the 10th chief justice. He resigned in February 1930 due to his declining health and died the following month.
Earlier Biden said there would be ‘no legal basis’ for Republicans to subpoena his testimony in Trump’s impeachment trial, clarifying remarks from Friday that drew criticism.
Trump was impeached after a July 25 phone call to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in which he asked for help investigating Biden.
‘I want to clarify something I said yesterday. In my 40 years in public life, I have always complied with a lawful order and in my eight years as VP, my office – unlike Donald Trump and Mike Pence – cooperated with legitimate congressional oversight requests,’ Biden said on Twitter.
‘But I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial,’ Biden added.
The former vice president tweeted that subpoenas should ‘go to witnesses with testimony to offer to Trump’s shaking down the Ukraine government – they should go to the White House.’
Trump and fellow Republicans want to call Biden and his son, Hunter, to appear as witnesses during the proceedings for alleged corruption in Ukraine.
But speaking to the editorial board of The Des Moines Register, Biden, the current front runner for the 2020 Democratic nomination, said that compliance with a subpoena would detract from the president’s own actions.
Biden has not yet been endorsed by his former running mate. Pictured: Obama (right) speaks as Biden (left) stands in the Rose Garden at the White House, November 2016
Biden similarly told reporters during a campaign stop in Iowa on his ‘No Malarkey Tour’ that he wouldn’t appear voluntarily, because he doesn’t want to take the attention away from Trump’s ‘crimes’.
The 77-year-old insisted: ‘No, I’m not going to let them take their eye off the ball.
‘The President is the one who has committed impeachable crimes, and I’m not going to let him divert from that. I’m not going to let anyone divert from that’.
He did not address how he would respond to a subpoena until Friday.
‘This is all about a diversion’, Biden told the editorial board when asked about compliance with a subpoena.
‘And we play his game all the time. He’s done it his whole career.’