Rapper Cardi B and former Vice President Joe Biden discussed issues including child care and race relations in a wide-ranging interview for Elle.
Cardi B noted her recent experience navigating child care since giving birth, also pointing out the decline in availability of after-school programs.
Biden agreed, lamenting that as material conditions improved, people became less willing to pay taxes to maintain such programs.
“And that’s why this [notion that] ‘government is bad’ has been such a downer for things that really matter to you and me,” he added.
The rapper also said that she felt “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.”
Black people, she said “want justice. We want to feel like Americans.”
In response, Biden described a conversation with House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) in which Thompson noted the multiracial composition of racial justice protests in Mississippi and told him “things are changing.”
“The reason I’m so optimistic is because of your generation,” Biden said. “You’re the smartest, the best educated, the least prejudiced, and the most engaged generation in history. And you’re going to change things.”
Biden also introduced her to his daughter Ashley during the Zoom call, quipping “You know the nickname she gave me when she was growing up? She called me Joey B. So we may be related.”
Cardi B was a vocal supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during the Democratic primaries but endorsed Biden after the Vermont senator exited the race. “I’m just gonna go with Joe Biden because I cannot see the next step of America being ran by number 45,” she said in April.