How Doug Emhoff learned Biden dropped out — and what Kamala told him when it happened

The second gentleman left a SoulCycle class, without his phone, and the vice president hadn’t heard from him

Doug Emhoff nearly missed one of the biggest moments of his wife’s life when Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidental race.

The second gentleman — during a fundraising and organizing call with Black Gay and Queer Men for Harris on Thursday night — said he was out with gay friends in West Hollywood on Sunday morning. They were getting coffee after finishing a SoulCycle class, and he didn’t have his phone with him, Emhoff said, according to The Los Angeles Times.

“My friend’s partner said, ‘Um, you need to look at this,’ and I said, ‘What?’” Emhoff recalled.

His friend was holding his phone to show Emhoff the president’s letter announcing he was ending his re-election campaign.

“Of course I didn’t have my phone, so I ran and ran and got into our car, and of course my phone is just on fire, and it’s basically, ‘Call Kamala,’ ‘Call Kamala,’ ‘Call Kamala,’ from everyone,” he said.

So he did.

“And of course, the first thing she said was, ‘Where the … were you? I need you,’” Emhoff said.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff appear at the Harris for President campaign headquarters as she launched her candidacy on July 22. Harris said he missed the moment when President Joe Biden dropped out because he was out with friends. (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

The funny moment shed light on how quickly Biden’s decision came down and was kept from many in Washington, DC. Less than an hour after Biden released the letter, he endorsed Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee to replace him. Since then, life has been a “whirlwind,” Emhoff said.

“We’ve just been hustling,” he said. “I’ve barely even seen her or talked to her since this all happened.”

Emhoff joined Harris on Monday at the now-former Biden campaign headquarters in Delaware, where she greeted staff and supporters and previewed her campaign message in the weeks and months to come.

Before getting off Thursday night’s call, Emhoff said he had not seen Harris in several days since her campaign’s launch.

“I’m going to give her a big hug, I’m going to say, ‘Go get some rest, honey,’ because we’ve got about 102-ish days left to save our country,” he said.

The call was among several similar organizing efforts taking place to rally campaign volunteers and supporters around Harris’s candidacy. Emhoff thanked participants for their support, adding that “she’s going to be there for you and the rest of us.”

“She has a vision for America that we all have a place in,” he said. “She is talking about the future, not the past. She’s talking about a world where there’s freedom, a world where we value everyone, a world where we stick up for people, a world where we fight against bullies — and we’re fighting against the ultimate bully right now.”

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, in an early glimpse at how Emhoff might help respond to Donald Trump’s attacks, Emhoff said: “That’s all he’s got?”

“You heard the vice president yesterday making the case against Donald Trump very clearly,” he said. “Laid out the case directly, and in a compelling fashion. But she also laid out a vision for the future, a vision where there’s freedom, where we’re not having to talk about these issues of today in this post-Dobbs hellscape that Donald Trump created.

Harris and Emhoff kiss before Harris speaks at her campaign headquarters in Delaware on July 22. Emhoff later said that the vice president told him ‘I need you’ after learning that Joe Biden dropped out of the race. (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Emhoff briefly mentioned Trump on Thursday’s call, but said he didn’t “want to get into all that, because I heard the last speaker talking about the hellscape that our country will be [in] if somehow that guy who was a terrible president the first time somehow gets back.”

“We can’t imagine a future like that,” Emhoff said.

Within days of her candidacy, Harris won key endorsements from lawmakers and prominent allies — including Barack and Michelle Obama — while securing support from a majority of Democratic National Committee delegates to clinch the party’s nomination.

She is expected to announce her running mate before August 7, and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago begins August 19, when she is expected to formally accept the party’s nomination.