Biden says he would consider Castro, O’Rourke for VP, Cabinet positions

Former Vice President Joe Biden told The Dallas Morning News he’s spoken to former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julian Castro and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) since their exits from the Democratic presidential race and would consider both of them for cabinet positions.

“I would consider either or both of them. I’ve spoken to each of them,” Biden said of the two Texans. “My plea to both of them is that they stay engaged. They are talented, talented people.”

Castro, since exiting the race, has endorsed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and campaigned with her. Castro and Biden were at odds in a September 2019 Democratic primary debate when the former HUD secretary asked Biden if he was “forgetting what you said two minutes ago” as Biden discussed the details of his health care plan.

In the interview, Biden also discussed calls from Republican senators for his son Hunter Biden to testify in the Senate trial of President Trump, who was impeached partly in connection with his attempts to persuade Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the younger Biden’s seat on the board of directors of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma.

The elder Biden said his son should not testify, and that the prospect of Hunter Biden testifying in exchange for testimony by former national security adviser John Bolton “doesn’t make any sense.”

“[Trump] got himself in trouble, in the beginning of this whole thing, by trying to get a foreign government to say something that wasn’t true,” Biden added. “Did he do that, or didn’t he do that?”