Susan Rice: Kamala Harris a ‘tremendous running mate’ for Biden

Former national security adviser Susan Rice praised presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s selection of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as his running mate, adding that she would be “proud” to serve in a Biden administration.

Rice, who was reportedly on Biden’s shortlist, told NBC News’s Savannah Guthrie early Wednesday that Harris was a “great choice.”

“She’s going to make a tremendous running mate for Joe Biden,” Rice said. “I’m very confident that the Biden-Harris ticket will be a winning one.”

Rice also said she was “honored and humbled” to have been considered to share the Democratic ticket with the former vice president, and said that “I’ll do everything I possibly can to help Joe Biden become the next president of the United States and to help him succeed in governing in whatever form of fashion he wants.”

“I’m proud to serve him in any way he’d like,” Rice, who served with Biden in the Obama administration, added.

She also said Harris’s status as the first woman of color on a major party ticket was “so exciting,” adding that it was “past time.”

“Black women are the backbone of the nation, not just the Democratic Party,” she said. “I think it is energizing, it’s exciting, it’s historic.”

Rice also said that she did not believe Harris was significantly to Biden’s left, and that the two were “very compatible” politically.

“The Republicans and Donald Trump in particular have nothing to run on, except attacks. They have been set up to position their assault on whoever was to be the vice presidential select as left and socialist. It’s not true. That is not who Kamala Harris is. And it’s not who Joe Biden is,” she said.

During the primaries, Harris and Biden clashed in an early debate over the former vice president’s opposition to desegregation busing in the 1970s.

Biden, who pledged to name a woman his running mate during the primaries, officially announced his selection of Harris Tuesday afternoon.