Joe Biden and Kamala Harris appear together for the first time since VP selection | FULL EVENT

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) appeared for the first time as running mates at an event in Delaware on Wednesday, where they vowed to defeat President Trump, lead the nation out of the coronavirus and economic crises, and repair the racial divisions that have roiled the country.

Biden and Harris, dressed in royal blue suits inside a high school gymnasium in Wilmington, became emotional in separate speeches recounting how they had first been introduced by Biden’s son Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 45.

The candidates leaned into the historic nature of Harris’s vice presidential candidacy. If elected, Harris will be the first woman and first person of color to be vice president.

And they offered blistering critiques of Trump’s racial politics, anchoring their attacks to the three-year anniversary of the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va.

Biden praised Harris, the child of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, for taking on the big banks during the Great Recession and the gun and oil lobbies as attorney general of California.

Biden pointed to her work on the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, saying she had led the effort to hold the Trump administration accountable with her investigations and pointed questioning of officials.

And Biden, who at 77 would be the oldest ever to be sworn in for a first term as president, cast Harris as someone who is ready to step in and lead from the start.

“She knows how to govern, how to make the hard calls, and she’s ready to do the job on day one," Biden said.