Second gentleman Doug Emhoff confessed to receiving a profane scolding from Vice President Kamala Harris for not having his phone with him when President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race in July.
Emhoff said Tuesday on the Le Batard & Friends – South Beach Sessions podcast that he was stuck in Los Angeles that weekend, so he decided to take a spin class with friends.
The second gentleman previously described the spin class as being at SoulCycle in West Hollywood with two friends who are a gay couple.
“And we were just chatting and I had my phone in the Secret Service car, so I didn’t have my phone,” Emhoff told host Dan Le Batard this week. “And then my friend’s partner just showed me his phone with President Biden’s letter and I was like, ‘got to go’ and I just ran into the car and there was my phone, literally, like – you could feel the steam.”
Emhoff said he discovered “seven or eight messages” on his phone with the same mandate: “Call Kamala.” It was a conversation of a minute or less that started with, “Where were you? I need you now,” he recalled. ‘And actually: ‘go to work.’ And I did that.’
Second Gen. Doug Emhoff admitted on the Le Batard & Friends – South Beach Sessions podcast that he was yelled at for not having his phone with him when President Joe Biden shockingly dropped out of the presidential race
Le Batard asked Emhoff if he was wearing “tight bike shorts” or those “clackety-clack” running shoes as he ran to the car.
“I try not to wear tight bike shorts,” Emhoff said. “So I just wear the long, long old-fashioned Nike basketball shorts, which probably aren’t great for spin classes.”
“But I was soaked with sweat,” the second gentleman described. “I took off the click shoes.”
Emhoff, 60, said the car was parked a few hundred yards away.
So West Hollywood was treated to an “old man, half running, trying to get to that car to get into the mix.”
Biden dropped out of the presidential race on July 21 after Democratic politicians and prominent donors questioned his ability to defeat former President Donald Trump following his disastrous debate performance in late June, which also raised concerns about his mental acuity.
Polls showed for months that Americans were concerned about the 81-year-old president’s old age.
Vice President Kamala Harris asked Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, “Where were you?” when he didn’t answer his phone upon learning that President Joe Biden had withdrawn from the presidential race on July 21
Biden almost immediately endorsed Harris for the Democratic nomination and the party followed suit.
Less than two weeks after Biden dropped out, DailyMail.com exclusively reported that Emhoff’s first marriage ended after he cheated on his wife Kerstin with the couple’s nanny, Najen Naylor, and got her pregnant.
Emhoff later confirmed DailyMail.com reports for CNN.
Kerstin is an outspoken supporter of Harris’ presidential bid and attended the Democratic National Convention.
Since news of the affair broke, DailyMail.com reported that Emhoff violently punched an ex-girlfriend for flirting with another man during a dramatic 2012 incident at the Cannes Film Festival in France.
In a follow-up report, former colleagues called Emhoff “inappropriate” and “misogynistic” at work.
The reporting runs counter to the public persona built around the nation’s first second gentleman, who was described by former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki as the person who “reshaped the perception of masculinity.” because he’s an “incredibly supportive husband.”
‘It’s funny. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’ve always been like that,” Emhoff responded in an interview with Psaki on MSNBC last month. ‘My father has always been like that. For me it’s the right thing to do: support women.’
“It’s mutual for Kamala and me,” he added. “We support each other, we have each other’s backs.”