WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and propelled Vice President Kamala Harris into a political vortex, her husband was far from the first to find out.
Doug Emhoff, in fact, was closer to the last.
At home in California, Emhoff had attended a Sunday morning SoulCycle class in West Hollywood and left his cellphone in the car while going for coffee and a chat with friends in a park.
When Biden’s statement posted, Emhoff ultimately saw it on a borrowed phone, but he wasn’t sure it was authentic at first and skipped to the end — initially missing the key part. When he finally retrieved his phone, it was “self-immolating with the amount of messages and calls,” Emhoff said in an interview with The Associated Press.
And after he reached Harris, “First, it was kinda like, ‘Where the … were you?’’ Emhoff laughed, before recalling that he told his wife, ”’I love you, I’m proud of you, I’m here for you, I kinda know what to do.”
‘We haven’t had time for the history’
Emhoff has demonstrated a flair for defining the role of the nation’s first second gentleman over the past three-plus years. He would become the country’s first first gentlemen if his wife, the likely Democratic nominee, wins in November.
