Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is worried about recent polling showing the top three potential Democratic nominees for the 2020 presidential election are white men.
CNN’s Van Jones asked Sen. Gillibrand, who is considering a presidential bid, what she thought of the fact that former vice president Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) were leading a CNN poll of 2020 hopefuls.
“All white guys,” Jones lamented, asking “in a party as diverse as ours, does it worry you to see the top three being white guys?”
“Yes,” Gillibrand replied flatly.
“I aspire for our country to recognize the beauty of our diversity in some point in the future and I hope some day we have a woman president,” she argued.
"I aspire for our country to recognize the beauty of our diversity in some point in the future. And I hope some day we have a woman president," Sen. Gillibrand says about the Democratic presidential field.
— CNN (@CNN) December 15, 2018
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“I love the fact that Barack Obama was our president for eight years, I hope more people of color not only aspire and win the presidency because that’s what makes America so extraordinary,” she added. “We are all of that, we are everything. And I think a more inclusive America is a stronger America.”
Part of her concern over support for white, male candidates in the CNN poll may be related to Gillibrand’s own standing in the poll. She currently has one percent support for a potential 2020 run.
Gillibrand confirmed to Van Jones that she’s “thinking about it, of course.”
“And I'm going to think about it over the holidays with my children and my husband, and I will make a decision soon," Gillibrand said.
"This is sort of where my faith drives me,” she added. “I do believe in these moments of great darkness — of great pain, of great suffering, of great division, of great hatred — that all of us are called to do something ... to restore what is good in our world and I feel very called at this moment to fight as hard as I possibly can to restore that."
Gillibrand faced criticism earlier this month for tweeting out that the future is “female” and “intersectional.”
Donald Trump Jr. wondered where his sons fit into that future and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) pointed out that our future should be American, not based on identity politics.
Gillibrand told Van Jones that her critics missed the point.
"This just means please include the ladies in the future, because they're not really included today," she argued.