Cardi B interviewed presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for the latest issue of Elle magazine and they chopped it up about the coronavirus, paying for college and Pres. Trump’s “dangerous” prejudice.
When former Vice President Biden asked the rapper what her main interest is in the upcoming election — just 79 days away — she said it all comes down to one thing: truth.
“I have a whole list of things that I want our next president to do for us. But first, I just want Trump out,” said Cardi, who was a vocal supporter of Biden’s former rival for the party’s nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders. “His mouth gets us in trouble so much. I don’t want to be lied to — we’re dealing with a pandemic right now, and I just want answers. I want to know when this will be over. I want to go back to my job. But I don’t want someone to lie to me and tell me that it’s fine not to wear a mask, that everything is going to be okay. I want a president to tell me what the steps are for us to get better, to tell me, This is why it is taking so long, this is why other countries are doing better than ours. Tell me the truth, the hard-core truth.”
In keeping with Democratic Socialist Sanders’ main planks, Cardi said she also still wants Medicare for all, as well as free college and, most importantly, she wants “Black people to stop getting killed and no justice for it. I’m sick of it. I just want laws that are fair to Black citizens and fair to cops, too.”
Biden, who spent eight years as Pres. Obama’s veep and more than 35 years in the Senate, said there’s “no reason” we can’t have all those things. The key, he said, is for presidents to take responsibility and face hard truths. “But right now, we’re in a position where we have an opportunity to make so much progress,” Biden said. “The American public has had the blinders taken off.”
Biden also reminded the “WAP” rapper that if 18-24 year-olds had voted at the same level as the rest of the population in the 2016 election reality star/real estate mogul Trump might not be in the White House right now. Asked to tick off what her fans are most concerned about, Cardi said free college and Medicare are at the top of the list, especially with people getting sick “left and right” due to COVID-19.
“I’m always so focused on Medicare and college education, and I never really thought about how important child care is. Nobody is more motivated than a mom,” said the mother of two-year-old Kulture. “Nobody wants to go hustle out there and get the money for the kid like a mother. [But] how are you supposed to do that when you probably can’t afford a babysitter? Fortunately for me, my mom helps take care of my child, but for a lot of people, their mom cannot retire and take care of the kids. The mom has to work, too. I feel like this country is so hurt, to the point that this year, a lot of people couldn’t even celebrate July 4, because not everybody feels like an American. A lot of people feel like [they’re] not even part of America.”
Biden told Cardi that one of the things he admires most about her is her focus on equity and treating people with respect. Reminiscing about how the Civil Rights movement was just getting started when he was in high school, Biden said today we have the opportunity to change the world and demand change by filming when a “brave kid” films something like the killing of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer. “And people around the world are saying, ‘My God. This really happens?’ And now they’re demanding change.”
Cardi was definitely feeling that sentiment, telling Biden, “I feel like Black people, we’re not asking for sympathy, we’re not asking for charity — we are just asking for equality. We are asking for fairness, and we are asking for justice. That is all. I feel like everything people are asking for is getting interpreted in a very different way. No, it’s simple: We just want justice. We want to feel like Americans.”
And even though Cardi recently endorsed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for President in 2024, she and Biden could agree on one important thing that has to happen on Nov. 3: Pres. Trump has to go. “This prejudice is dangerous,” she said of Trump’s racially divisive rhetoric, including his recently false, unfounded claims that Biden’s V.P. candidate, Oakland, California-born Sen. Kamala Harris, is not a U.S. citizen.
“It could be the start of a civil war,” Cardi said during the Zoom call with Biden. “It makes people feel uncomfortable around different people. Nobody wants to feel targeted. Nobody wants animosity. Everybody just wants the best for themselves, their future, their kids’ future. I don’t want to [have to] tell my kid, ‘You have to be careful going to the store. Don’t wear a hoodie. Please don’t get stopped.’ We don’t want that. And I don’t want to feel a certain type of animosity toward a different race, because I feel like they get it easier than us. Nobody wants to feel like that. Why can’t we just work with each other?”
