Podesta floated Bill Gates, Bloomberg as possible Clinton VPs

by Jessie Hellmann - 10/18/16 9:08 AM ET

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman in March floated a long list of potential running mates for Clinton, including billionaire Bill Gates, former Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

{mosads}John Podesta emailed Clinton a list of 39 names to consider for vetting as her eventual running mate, according to a hacked email posted on WikiLeaks on Tuesday morning.

The list includes expected names like Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, as well as Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who ended up joining Clinton’s ticket in July.

The list appeared to divide options into categories. Hispanic people, women, white lawmakers and black lawmakers were each listed in groups, as well as military figures and people from the business world.

Sanders, who was facing off with Clinton in the Democratic primaries at the time, occupied his own category at the bottom.

Below is the full list from the email. All spelling errors and formatting are as they appear in the original email:

Javier Becerra

Julian Castro

Eric Garcetti

Tom Perez

Ken Salazar

Tammy Baldwin

Kirsten Gillibrand

Amy Klobuchar

Claire McKaskill

Jeanne Shaheen