Exclusive: Clyburn names the moment he knew Harris had “arrived”
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Rep. Jim Clyburn speaks during the First in the Nation Celebration Dinner in Columbia, S.C., on Jan. 27. Photo: Grant Baldwin/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) spoke to President Biden moments before he dropped out of the 2024 race, and then moved swiftly to help consolidate support behind Vice President Kamala Harris, he recounted at an Axios House event on Tuesday.
Why it matters: Clyburn and the Congressional Black Caucus stood behind Biden until the very end, but he told Axios' Sophia Cai he'd already been watching Harris closely and "knew she was ready" to step up.
What he's saying: Clyburn reflected on a speech Vice President Harris made in Tennessee last year in support of three ousted lawmakers.
- "I'm sitting there, and in the middle of that speech I said, 'She has arrived.' I saw it. I felt it."
- Then Harris hit the road in opposition to the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. "I said, 'she's cooking,'" Clyburn added.
State of play: Clyburn celebrated Biden for being the first candidate to select a woman of color as his running mate and the first to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court.
- "I sat down with some folks at a midnight meeting up in New York about two weeks before Joe Biden got out of the race, and they said 'why are you sticking with him?'" Clyburn said. "I said 'Why shouldn't we?'"
- Once Biden dropped out, "it was not hard to make the switch, but [the support for Biden] is based in the record," Clyburn said.
Behind the scenes: Clyburn said Biden called him before withdrawing from the presidential race and read him the statement that was about to make headlines all around the world.
- "I told him, 'There's a little thing missing out the statement.' He asked me what it was and I said, 'You can't leave the stage not endorsing.'"
- "He said 'I'm going to put out a second statement within the hour,'" Clyburn continued. "That second statement came out at 1:46."
- "At 1:47 I was on the phone, and I roped in my little kitchen cabinet, I said: 'We are all in for Kamala.' We'd been studying her for a long time. We knew she was ready."
Zoom out: Clyburn's endorsement of President Biden during the 2020 presidential election was key to his presidential victory.
- Clyburn, one of the most powerful voices within the Democratic Party and a longtime Biden ally, was resistant to the president being removed from the ticket, but has been a vocal supporter of Harris.
- He told Axios' Mike Allen last month that Democrats need "lovefest" at the Democratic National Convention to show unity surrounding Harris as the party's presidential nominee.
Go deeper: Exclusive: Clyburn says Democrats need a "lovefest" at DNC
