Out Sen. Tammy Baldwin: 'I Certainly Would' Be Biden's Running Mate

The first lesbian vice president? U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin says that if Joe Biden asks her to be his running mate, she'll accept.

On Thursday's edition of The View, cohost Whoopi Goldberg asked Baldwin about the possibility. Goldberg said "rumors are flying" that the Wisconsin senator has been interviewed and vetted for the number 2 spot, for which Biden has promised to choose a woman. "Would you take it if it was offered?" Goldberg asked.

"Look, my single focus is making sure that Joe Biden becomes the next president of the United States, and I want to help him in any way I can," said Baldwin, who endorsed Biden in April, before he had clinched the Democratic nomination. "If he were to ask me to be his running mate, I certainly would." (The Advocate has already suggested her, along with other LGBTQ+ women and allies, as a potential running mate.)

Cohost Sunny Hostin followed up by asking Baldwin if choosing a Black woman (Baldwin is white) "would be appropriate and important at this moment in our country," as many people have observed. The senator replied that Biden will make a "historic choice" in any case and that there are "exceptional candidates" among the women of color he's considering. But she added, "I have to respect that he has his own process."

Baldwin also said she was "filled with joy" by the recent Supreme Court ruling that job discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal, while she noted that the Equality Act is still needed because discrimination happens in other aspects of life, such as housing and public accommodations.

She went on to talk about being an out lesbian throughout her political career, starting at age 24 in a local office in Wisconsin; she then became first out member of the LGBTQ+ community to be elected to the U.S. House as a nonincumbent (others had come out while already in office) and the first out U.S. senator overall. But she noted that she's always run not to make history but to make a difference.

She further went into the Democrats' chances to take Wisconsin, a swing state that went Republican by a narrow margin in the 2016 presidential election. Watch below.