Vice President Harris offered effusive praise for Sean “Diddy” Combs while participating in a town hall dedicated to the coronavirus and black Americans.
The two-hour event in April 2020 was co-hosted by CNN political commentator Van Jones and also featured Rev. Al Sharpton and “Squad” members Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.)
“Hey everyone, it’s good to be with you this evening. Sean I want to thank you because you always have a way of convening and bringing folks together,” Harris said on the call. She later followed up in an effusive tweet that was widely mocked on social media.
The event also featured New York Times columnist Charles Blow, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, and pundit Angela Rye — who called Diddy “my real sibling.”
“Somebody needs to step up and sound the alarm and I want to give thanks and praise to you [Diddy] to have the platform that you have and to have the heart that you have is unbelievable that you’re going to be able to maybe save a bunch of lives tonight,” said Van Jones kicking off the show.
“I got a chance to spend time with Diddy. The passion and the love that this brother has for our survival for our success for our thriving for our growth is unmatched and we’re just getting started,” Jones added later.
When it was Sharpton’s turn to speak — he and Diddy became emotional.
“I’ve known him since he was a teenager, he’s always stood the gap and never really got the credit he should have as the cultural icon that he is,” said Sharpton.
“I call Al pops, if you all don’t know. That’s my pops right there,” Diddy said later in response. The rapper donated $2,000 to Sharpton’s 2004 presidential campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records.
AOC and Pressley offered their praise.
“Thank you so much Van and thank you Diddy also,” AOC said.
Pressley added “I just want to thank Diddy for using this platform in this way. Grateful for a vehicle and a platform to be unapologetically black,”
The call focused mostly on how alleged racism had impacted black Americans during the pandemic and causing a higher coronavirus mortality rate. Camara Phyllis Jones, an antiracism scholar and epidemiologist at Emory University claimed that black people were being denied ventilators because of their race.
Diddy ended the call by thanking “Camilla Harris” — and expressing his hope for a pandemic of love.
“There’s a cure and that cure is love. That cure is love. If we all really look out for each other that’s a different type of virus. That’s called a love virus. We can’t love nobody else if we don’t love ourselves.”
Before his spectacular fall from grace amid federal charges of sex trafficking, Combs had been a fixture of American culture and Democratic politics. During the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, his group Citizen Change helped promote voter turnout with the catch-phrase “Vote or Die.”
