Kamala Harris congratulates JD Vance on being Trump’s running mate – and challenges him to debate

The Vice President has previously accused Donald Trump of wanting an ‘enabler’ as his deputy who will be loyal to him over their country

Kamala Harris has called Donald Trump's new running mate JD Vance to congratulate him on being selected and to challenge him to a debate this summer.

A Biden campaign official said on Monday that the vice president left Vance a voicemail message, expressing "her hope that the two can meet in the vice presidential debate proposed by CBS News."

Vance, a freshman senator from Ohio best known for his best-selling 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, was chosen on Monday to be Donald Trump's vice president if he wins back the White House this November.

The Biden and Trump campaigns have each accepted rival invitations for a running mates' debate – one from Fox News, one from CBS – but neither campaign has yet accepted both.

"Vice President Harris is prepared to debate JD Vance," said Biden campaign spokesperson TJ Ducklo in a call with reporters on Monday afternoon. "We have accepted the proposal from CBS News."

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on Saturday at the Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans. She called JD Vance after he was named the Republican vice president nominee (Getty Images)

Harris appears to have said little in public about Vance before this point. But in an interview with Politico last month, she said that Trump wanted "an enabler" for his running mate.

"He doesn’t want a governing partner. He doesn’t want another Mike Pence, and I think that is clear," she said. "The litmus test is, are they going to be absolutely loyal to Trump over country or their oath of office, or, frankly, the American people?”

Given a list of potential Trump picks for vice president, she said: "Everyone on that list has supported a Trump abortion ban in their state or has called for a national ban. In fact, many voted this week in the Senate against the right to contraception. That’s how far down the road they are."

Vance, on the other hand, has criticized Harris in starkly personal terms, calling her a member of the "childless Left" that he claimed is damaging the nation.

JD Vance meets with Donald Trump in Ohio following the East Palestine train derailment in February 2023 (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)

Although Harris is a stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff's two children from his previous marriage, Vance singled her out for not having her own kids – along with transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, New Jersey senator Cory Booker and New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

"Why is this just a normal fact of… life for the leaders of our country to be people who don’t have a personal and direct stake in it via their own offspring?" Vance said in 2021.

He also claimed that all children should get a vote but that said vote should be controlled by their parents until they grow up, giving them unequal democratic representation over non-parents.