Joe Biden and Kamala Harris sat down with ABC News for their first joint interview together since forming the Democratic ticket. In the one hour broadcast, the pair covered a lot of ground including why Biden chose the California senator to be his running mate:

“She has enormous strength. The main reason and I realized that I drove my staff crazy and everybody else and all of you by not letting anybody know who I picked. But I wanted someone who was, who was strong and who was ready to be president on day one, and she’s ready. And the other thing about Kamala is that I asked her, when I called her and asked her to be my vice president — the nominee along with me — I said, I’d like to ask you what Barack asked of me.

I want you to be the last person in the room on every major decision because I know she’ll not be intimidated by the, by the Oval Office. I know she’ll not be reluctant to tell me exactly what she thinks. And I know she’ll have a perspective — different in many cases than mine just by nature of who we are and our backgrounds and that’s why I thought it was so important as well to have a woman as vice president.”

They also talked a lot about race. Here’s how Harris responded to a question about whether Biden truly understands racial issues:

“Listen, when Joe and I talk about, and frankly have talked about, over the years, but in connection with this race about the state of Black America, he has a deep sense of awareness and knowledge about racial disparities, inequities and systematic racism. And Joe speaks the words and actually knows how to say the words “Black Lives Matter.” Contrary to what the president of the United States, the current president of the United States, does which is to sow hate and division full time, has never spoken those words and will never speak the words “Black Lives Matter.” So in this election, there is no question to me, that electing Joe Biden as president of the United States, means for the first time in the last four years having a president who takes on the issue of systemic racism and does something about it.”

And Biden, once again, made it clear he doesn’t want to defund the police.

Watch more above from ABC News.