ELENA MOORE: I want to talk about all things vice president.
Veepstakes. Why do we care about Joe Biden's pick
for a running mate? Walk me through that.
DOMENICO MONTANARO: Well, it's really a peculiar thing
because most vice presidents don't have much power. The vice
presidential nominee is not who people wind up voting for,
but this year might be more consequential than past years.
If he wins, he would be the oldest president sworn in.
So a lot of people are looking to who he would pick as the
vice president, because they need to be ready on day one.
He said that he would pick a woman. There are lots of women
on our list, about a dozen, and I know that you're
going to rattle them off.
MOORE: Yes.
California Sen. Kamala Harris,
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar,
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren,
Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth
Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
Florida Congresswoman Val Demings
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms
Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams
and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice.
MONTANARO: Say that five times fast.
It's a lengthy list. There are a lot of names there.
We know that former Vice President Biden has been
pressured to pick an African-American woman. And there are
some black women on that list. I think Kamala Harris from
California is somebody who was a front runner, she still
continues to be. She has a very good relationship
with the Biden family.
KAMALA HARRIS: We will elect Joe Biden as the next
president of the United States.
MONTANARO: I think about someone like Val Demings, who is a
congresswoman from Florida,
was one of the impeachment managers.
VAL DEMINGS: This trial is about abuse of power, obstruction,
breaking the law and our system of checks and balances.
MONTANARO: She's a former police chief herself from Orlando.
So she's somebody who I think is going to get a lot of
attention. And, you know, you mentioned Keisha Lance Bottoms,
not somebody who had risen to a high level before some of
these demonstrations that have taken place around the country.
But her speech that she'd given, she sort of started to get
some national attention.
KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS: When I heard there were rumors about
violent protests in Atlanta, I did what a mother would do.
I called my son and I said, "where are you?"
I said, "I cannot protect you,
and black boys shouldn't be out today."
MONTANARO: I think that she's somebody that is going to
considered and somebody who's also close to the Bidens.
MOORE: Yeah, I would also just stress that there's still
a lot of talk about two names you've recently heard a lot
because they ran for president: Elizabeth Warren from
Massachusetts and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
MONTANARO: Yeah, look, he's going to have to balance whether
or not he wants to pick someone like Warren who could help
shore up the progressive base, or pick somebody who might not
more alienate the middle if they think that Warren is going to
be somebody who alienates the middle. Warren would be
definitely a governing pick. She's somebody who knows where
the bodies are buried, so to speak, within government and
regulations, and she would certainly have an agenda from day
one about how to attack what's been happening in the country,
especially from an economic standpoint.
MOORE: And before we move on, I do think it's worth mentioning
there's also a lot of talk about Biden potentially picking a
woman of color more generally. You look at
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham from New Mexico. She's Latina,
and she has been getting a lot of press for her role
governing during the COVID crisis.
MONTANARO: Yeah, look, Biden had some deficiencies during
the primary campaign with Latinos, and Latinos in the Southwest
in particular are going to be crucial if Democrats hope to
take back the White House. I think about a place like Nevada,
of course New Mexico, where Michelle Lujan Grisham is from
and Arizona. Big on the map this year for the first time
maybe in future cycles, Texas — I'm still not sold on Texas at
this point — but if they're going to win in places like that,
they need Latinos on board. And Democrats think that maybe
Michelle Lujan Grisham might help there. One problem for her
is that she's managing the COVID-19 pandemic in her state,
and I think that's gonna be a big issue for a lot of these
governors, people like Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan, going
to be difficult to pull them out of those states when
they're dealing with a crisis.
MOORE: As we get closer and closer to some sort of convention,
what are the topics that Democrats and Democratic leaders are
going to keep talking about?
MONTANARO: Well, what a time we're living in. And Joe Biden
said that he's going to pick somebody, pick a V.P. by
August 1st. We have no idea what that convention is going to
look like. Is it going to be a Zoom conference convention where,
you know, they're socially distanced from his vice presidential
running mate? But we know that the topics this year are going
to be things like COVID-19, obviously. There's no cure, 
no vaccine. The economy, where we have 40 million people
unemployed. Highest level of unemployed since the Great
Depression. And of course, we have no idea how the fallout
from these protests we've seen around the country — the racial
tensions — we have no idea what that's going to mean at this
point. I mean, five months ago, it was hard to even think about
COVID-19 as being this thing that would shut the entire
country down. Certainly five months from now, it's not clear
what is going to be on the ballot coming then.
PROTESTERS: No Justice! No Peace!
I said Black Lives Matter!
MOORE: OK. That's where we'll leave it for now.
I'm Elena Moore. I'm a political researcher at NPR.
MONTANARO: And I'm Domenico Montanaro,
senior political editor and correspondent.
