Rachel Maddow presses Kamala Harris on her passing on Buttigieg for VP over concerns about his sexuality

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow pressed former Vice President Kamala Harris Monday about former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who she saw as too big a "risk" to choose as her running mate in 2024, due to his sexuality. 

"I guess I’d ask you to just elaborate on that a little bit. It’s hard to hear. With you running, as, you’re the first woman elected vice president. You’re a Black woman and a South Asian woman elected to that high office, very nearly elected president. To say that he couldn’t be on the ticket effectively because he was gay. It’s hard to hear," Maddow said of Buttigieg.

Harris wrote in her new book, "107 Days," that Buttigieg "would have been an ideal partner – if I were a straight white man."

The former Democratic presidential candidate responded, "That's not what I said, that he couldn't be on the ticket because he is gay."

Former Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Emerge 20th Anniversary Gala in San Francisco, California, on April 30, 2025. (CAMILLE COHEN/AFP via Getty Images)

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"My point is, as I write in the book, is that, I was clear that in 107 days, in one of the most hotly contested elections for president of the United States against someone like Donald Trump, who knows no floor to be a Black woman running for president of the United States, and as a vice presidential running mate, a gay man. With the stakes being so high, it made me very sad. But I also realized it would be a real risk," Harris continued. 

She said she was an ally of the LGBTQ community her whole life and said it was not due to any "prejudice" on her part. 

"We had such a short period of time. And the stakes were so high. I think Pete is a phenomenal, phenomenal public servant," she said. 

Rachel Maddow speaks during her MSNBC show on February 25, 2025.  (Screenshot/MSNBC)

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"And I think America is and would be ready for that. But at when I had to make that decision with two weeks to go. You know, and maybe I was being too cautious, you know, I’ll let our friends, we should all talk about that. Maybe I was, but that’s the decision I made. And I’m, as with everything else in the book, I'm being very candid about that, with a great deal of sadness about also the fact that it might have been a risk," the former VP continued. 

Harris also called President Donald Trump a "tyrant" during the interview.

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"Democracy sustains capitalism. Capitalism thrives in a democracy. And right now, we are dealing with – as I called him at my speech on the ellipse – a tyrant. We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators. That's what we're dealing with right now under Donald Trump. And these titans of industry are not speaking up," she said, referring to American CEOs, who she argued capitulated to the president.