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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   34121 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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Her book came out before his, so she didn't have anything in it about what questions precisely he was asked, but she did describe what the process for vetting a potential VP is like:

My vetting team was led by Jen O’Malley Dillon, my campaign chief of staff Sheila Nix, former Attorney General Eric Holder, and former White House counsel Dana Remus.

There’s a reason we had top cops and lawyers on the team. It’s a prosecutorial process, as I had learned four years earlier when I sat across a table from the lawyer vetting me. The final stage, after the investigation, was an interrogation that lasted nine hours. The attorney took every aspect of my past, especially the sensitive or difficult moments, and pressed me on them. Not because she didn’t know the answers, but to see how I would handle the pressure. Did I get my back up? Could I pivot? Would my answers pass the smell test? She would periodically ask me if I wanted to take a break. I declined. We didn’t get up from that table until she had fine-tooth-combed my entire life.

So maybe they did ask her awkward questions, but on the other hand - she does come across as someone who does not (whatever she claims) handle pressure of that sort well, plus she had a trump (ha!) card in that "I'm a black woman, you need me more than I need you":

Biden had won the nomination because Congressman Jim Clyburn, leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, had thrown his support behind him. The Black vote in the South Carolina primary—especially Black women’s vote—had thrust him to victory. The pressure was on him to pick a Black woman running mate.

I imagine they did try and ferret out 'are there any embarrassing little time bombs that will blow up if we pick you as VP and then someone does some digging?' but since there doesn't seem to be any Nancy Pelosi-style "my husband and I get rich off investing completely independently of any tips or insider trading information I find out in my day job' and all the stuff about Willie Brown had already been thrashed out when she was getting plum jobs from him and throughout her political career (and very interestingly, there's not one whisper of him or anything about this in her book), I imagine there wasn't anything obvious as a stumbling-block there.

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