#Biden denies feeling pressured to pick black woman as running mate

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he didn’t feel as if he had to select a black woman as his running mate.

“No, I didn’t feel pressure to select a black woman,” Biden said when asked the question by ABC’s “Good Morning America’’ co-host Robin Roberts during the candidate’s first co-interview with vice-presidential pick Kamala Harris.

“The government should look like the people, look like the country. Fifty-one percent of the people in this country are women,” Biden said. “As that old expression goes, ‘Women hold up half the sky.’ And in order to be able to succeed, you’ve got to be dealt in across the board.”

The pol said Harris just “fit the closest and best” to the agenda he is pushing for the country, which has been torn by racial strife.

“I cannot understand and fully appreciate what it means to walk in her shoes, to be an African-American woman, with Indian-American background, a child of immigrants,” Biden said of Harris, a California senator.

“She can’t assume exactly what it’s like to walk in my shoes. What we do know is we have the same value set.”