Stacey Abrams Shuts Down Joe Biden VP Rumors: ‘You Don’t Run for Second Place’

Barely a minute after sitting down on The View Wednesday morning, Stacey Abrams made news.

When Joy Behar asked the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate about the rumors that Joe Biden wanted to put her on his presidential ticket before he has even announced his own candidacy, Abrams said flatly, “I think you don’t run for second place.”

“Oh, that is a good answer,” Meghan McCain, who made her support for Biden over President Trump well known, chimed in as the audience cheered.

“If I’m going to enter a primary, then I’m going to enter a primary,” Abrams continued. “And if I don’t enter a primary, my job is to make certain that the best Democrat becomes the nominee and whoever wins the primary that we make sure that person gets elected in 2020.”

But what about an “Abrams-Biden ticket” for president, Behar wanted to know. “I am open to a number of options right now,” she replied.

Abrams, who was ostensibly on the show to promote her book Lead From the Outside, told the hosts that she does not yet know what she’s running for—or if she will be running at all—in 2020.

“I’m thinking about everything,” she said. “Part of my opportunity right now is that I have a number of options I didn’t know about before. The Senate race, running for governor again, possibly running for president, and my responsibility is to take seriously the responsibility, to give credibility to those who are asking me but to make sure I’m the right person, it’s the right time, and it’s the right job.”

On the Biden question specifically, Abrams added, “Running in a primary to be the vice president is very different than someone who has been selected by the party to be the nominee asking you to serve as a partner. And I am open to all options.”

From there, they moved on to ask Abrams what her advice to Biden would be regarding his recent “apology” for the way he treated Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas’ 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing. “I wish I could’ve done something... To this day I regret I couldn’t give her the kind of hearing she deserved,” Biden reportedly said at an event this week. “She paid a terrible price. She was abused during that hearing.”

“We have to remember apologies aren’t for the person who committed an offense,” Abrams said on The View. “They’re for the recipient. And the measure should be, do people feel their values have been heard and that you are truly repentant?”

After calling Biden a “lovely man who has done a great deal for our country,” Abrams added, “What he has done is opened the door and said I know that there was something wrong, I want to take responsibility. Now, whether we think he’s taken sufficient responsibility will be determined as the process continues, but I think he’s begun the process appropriately by saying I know there’s pain and I want to respond to that pain.”