It's finally inauguration week! After the Capitol insurrection on January 6, and with COVID-19 very much still present in the U.S., Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's inauguration festivities are going to
be much more scaled-back than normal, and security has tightened around the city.
But some things will never change, and one of those things is how proud Doug Emhoff is of his wife, the woman who will make history when she becomes vice president on Wednesday. In an interview with Jane Pauley that aired on CBS Sunday Morning, Emhoff's joy for his wife was palpable. But there was one moment, in particular, where he completely stole the show.
At the start of the interview, Pauley (whom Emhoff told to just call him "Doug"), asks the couple about their courtship, which began in 2013 and led to their marriage in 2014. "When you first got the friend who said, 'there's a guy,' maybe your friends were doing this all the time, but: 'there's a guy; don't Google him!' You totally Googled him, didn't you?," Pauley asks. Harris bursts out laughing, as Emhoff looked around, stunned. "Oooh, this is a reveal!," he says.
"I've never been asked that. I did!," Harris admits. She looks over at her husband, who still looks a little shocked. "Wow, OK," he says. "Look at Dougie," Harris says, lighting touching her husband's arm. "That's so funny you asked me that question!"
After they got a laugh from Pauley's sneaky question, the couple told the story of when they first talked. "One of my buddies was in town, and we went to the Laker game. We had a couple beers, I told him the story. I said, 'What do you think?' He said, 'Text her!' So ya know, we sat there, in the stands, and came up with this text, which was something like, "Hey, it's Doug. Awkward! I'm texting you."
"You guys composed it together?," Harris asks.
"We did," Emhoff responds. "So that's my reveal." He said the two texted back and forth, and Harris replied with "Go Lakers!," even though she's a serious Golden State Warriors fan.
The next morning, Emhoff called and left a voicemail, which he describes as "ridiculous." All these years later, Harris has saved the voicemail, and she plays it every year on their anniversary. "I thought I'd never hear back from her again, but...," Emhoff says.
"But it was just adorable," Harris finishes.
Emhoff has two children, Cole and Ella, who are in their early 20s and call her "Momala."
When we went to see them for Election Day, it really hit me, like, 'Whoa,' Ella told The New York Times in an interview published today. "Seeing them is a lot different now. There's a lot more people. I think the idea of sharing our parents with the world is kind of insane. Like, it's a really cool thing to wrap your head around—because you get to share all the great things—but it's also like, 'Huh?!'"