Former Obama administration National Security Adviser Susan Rice is far better than a longshot to be Joe Biden's presidential campaign running mate, despite the buzz for Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
"I know she's very much in the mix," a source told The Hill of Rice's status in the decision expected to come by Aug. 1.
Rice has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and worked closely with Biden under former President Barack Obama.
"I know they have a good relationship — perhaps the best relationship of anyone on the list," a close Biden campaign source told The Hill. "They've known each other for years, they've worked alongside each other and she's been tested in a way that a lot of folks on the list just haven't been."
Biden has vowed to select a woman running mate, and has been particularly mindful of one of color even before recent racial tensions in America.
"Everyone automatically thinks of Kamala when they think he needs to pick a woman of color," an Obama administration source with ties to Biden and Rice told The Hill. "It's become conventional wisdom.
"But if you look at Susan's credentials, she makes perfect sense. She's a rock star who has the confidence, stature, and gravitas to be vice president."
She might need to be all of that and more. Biden, who will turn 78 this November after the election, had said top criteria for his running mate, outside of gender and ethnicity, is to be "ready to be president on day one."
Biden would not only be the oldest elected U.S. president, but the oldest sitting president the day he would take office next January.
"They worked shoulder to shoulder together on a whole range of things — eight years of working together solving problems," the source close to both told The Hill. "It's not just that they were in the administration together, but they were working directly with one another on a daily or weekly basis."
One intriguing connection between Rice and Biden with regard to Trump are their reported connections to the investigation of Gen. Michael Flynn's conversation picked up through a wiretapping of a Russian ambassador before Trump took office.
Rice authored the infamous "by the book" email as her last moment as national security adviser on Trump's inauguration day.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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