Former US Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday he would consider Senator Kamala Harris, who dropped out of the presidential race on Tuesday, as a potential running mate.
"Of course I would," Biden said, as quoted by CNN. "Look, Sen. Harris has the capacity to be anything she wants to be. I mean it sincerely. I talked to her yesterday. She's solid, she can be president someday herself, she can be vice president, she could go on to be a Supreme Court justice, she could be attorney general. I mean she has enormous capability."
Harris ended her campaign on Tuesday due to financial pressures and after months of polling in single digits.
She became the third Democratic candidate to drop out of the race in three days, following Joe Sestak, who ended his campaign on Sunday and Steve Bullock, who dropped out on Monday.
Harris and Biden have a complicated history. During the first Democratic primary debate, the California senator confronted Biden on race issues, specifically about the time he spent in the Senate fighting against federally-mandated busing to desegregate schools and his comments on working with segregationist senators. While the viral moment helped Harris in the immediate post-debate polls, she later dropped significantly.
Biden said afterward that he wasn't prepared for the senator to confront him in that way.
"I was prepared for them to come after me, but I wasn't prepared for the person coming at me the way she came at me," he told CNN at the time.
Upon hearing the news from reporters that Harris had dropped out of the race Tuesday, Biden appeared genuinely shocked and said he had "mixed emotions" about her ending her campaign.
"My reaction is she's of first rate intellect, a first rate candidate and a real competitor. I have mixed emotions about it because she is really a solid, solid person, and loaded with talent. And I'm sure she's not dropping out on wanting to make the changes she cares about," the former Vice President said.