Kamala Harris is smart as a devil, has a backbone like a ramrod and is vastly experienced, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has said, defending his decision to select the California senator as his running mate.
Biden named Harris as his running mate in August, making her the first Black woman to run on a major political party's presidential ticket.
"Number one: her values. Number two: She is smart as a devil. Number three: She has a backbone like a ramrod. Number four: She is really principled. And number five: She has had significant experience in the largest state in the union, running a Justice Department that's only second in size to the United States Justice Department," Biden told CBS News in an interview on Monday.
"Your age makes the choice of your vice president all the more important. Why do you think Senator Harris would be ready to step in and become commander-in-chief if something were to happen to you?” he was asked.
"You know, obviously, I hope that never becomes a question. Kamala Harris was the first woman and first Black person to be district attorney of San Francisco, And attorney general of California. And she's only the second Black woman to serve in the United States Senate," Biden said.
Responding to a question, Harris acknowledged that being the first woman of colour, the first woman as vice president, may change things.
"I do. It helps change the perception of who can do what because that is still part of the battle after all. And you imagine some young person then seeing, 'Oh, things can be different. I don't have to conform to whatever I'm - you know, supposed to do or relegated to do. I can imagine what can be and be unburdened by what has been'," she said.
Harris said that she would play the role of Biden's partner in a Biden administration.
"One of the first things he said was, 'I want you to be the first person in the room and the last person in the room'," she said.
Responding to another question, Harris alleged that President Donald Trump is a racist.
"You can look at a pattern that goes back to him questioning the identity of the first Black president of the United States. You can look at Charlottesville, when there were peaceful protesters. And on the other side, Neo-Nazis and he talks about fine people on either side. Calling Mexicans rapists and criminals. His first order of business was to institute a Muslim ban. It all speaks for itself," Harris said.
"President Trump has said he denounces racism and white supremacy. After the Black Lives Matter protests that began this summer, the president tried to frame the election as a choice between law and order and Biden and Harris," she said.
Harris refuted the allegations that her policies are socialist in nature.
'No. It is the perspective of a woman who grew up - a Black child in America, who was also a prosecutor, who also has a mother who arrived here at the age of 19 from India," she asserted.
"I am not gonna be confined to Donald Trump's definition of who I or anybody else is. And I think America has learned that that would be a mistake," Harris said.