Van Jones on Harris nomination: ‘Take a breath, this is a big deal’

Democratic strategist Van Jones heralded Vice President Harris's rise to the top of the Democratic ticket "a very big deal."

“Take a breath,” Jones said Friday on CNN’s “The Lead” with anchor Phil Mattingly. “Take a breath, this is a big deal.”

Harris was named the official Democratic nominee Friday, after the Democratic National Committee hosted a virtual roll call vote. If elected to the presidency in November, she would be the first woman, Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to hold the nation's highest office.

"I've been voting for Kamala Harris for so long, that you sometimes forget how extraordinary she is," Jones told Mattingly. "And when I saw they were selling merchandise saying, 'history made,' and the merchandise 'history made' sold out almost immediately. I said, well, this is a big deal. This is a very big deal."

"I think about my mother, I think about my grandmothers when — it used to be a joke, the idea that you'd ever have a black president at all," he continued. "They didn't even ... comedians didn't even make jokes about having a black female president because that was completely inconceivable."

He added, "This is 400 years. This is a very, very big deal today and we shouldn't rush past it."

His comments come as the vice president secured the necessary required number of votes for the nomination less than two weeks since declaring her intent to run in place of President Biden. Biden announced last month that he would step aside and subsequently endorsed Harris.

Within days, Harris secured enough support from pledged delegates to clinch the nomination. She has also collected a growing list of key Democratic endorsement and boasted record fundraising numbers.

"I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States and I will tell you, the tireless work of our delegates, our state leaders, and our staff has been pivotal to making this moment possible,” Harris said Friday after the news was announced.

Her rise to the top of the ticket has been unusual, only coming about after weeks of turmoil among Democrats over whether Biden could defeat President Trump in November or serve another four years in the White House. The chaos stemmed from a rough debate performance, where the president appeared to lack energy, had a raspy voice and lost his train of thought.

Now, all eyes are on Harris as she is expected to name her running mate in the coming days. While the vice president signaled, she had not chosen yet, multiple figures have risen to the top of her shortlist, including Democratic governors Josh Shapiro (Pa.) and Tim Walz (Minn.); Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Jones, on Friday, said Shapiro was “the most logical person to get this ticket across the finish line.”

“Pennsylvania is must-win,” Jones told Mattingly. “He’s amazingly popular in Pennsylvania, and he’s a beloved figure in Pennsylvania, and he could make a tremendous difference.”

"He pulls Republican and Democratic votes every time he raises his hand for public office. And so, he's coming under fire," he said. "But it will... take some courage on her part to have, let's just be honest, a Black and Jewish ticket."

But, Jones added, "We're not afraid of bigotry. We're not afraid of anti-Jewish bias. We're not afraid of anti-Black bias. We're not afraid of anti-women bias."

"We're going to pick strong leaders, no matter what they look like, no matter how they pray," he added.