Chi-town — Monday night, President Joe Biden gave his farewell speech to the Democratic National Convention. By ending his run for reelection, Biden gave his party new energy, which led to Vice President Kamala Harris being promoted to the top of the ticket.
After 52 years of becoming the most powerful person in his party, Biden, 81, was praised for stepping down for Harris, even though many people in his party were pushing him to drop his reelection run. One month after an unprecedented mid-campaign switch, the opening night of the convention in Chicago was meant to give the current president a smooth exit and launch Harris into a battle with Republican Donald Trump, whose bid for the White House again is seen by Democrats as an existential threat.
The crowd clapped and chanted “Thank you, Joe” for more than four minutes as Biden arrived. He looked very moved.
He responded, “America, I love you.”
Biden seemed excited about the chance to defend his record, support his vice president, and hit Trump. He spoke clearly and with a lot of energy. His speech was more like the Biden who won in 2020 than the rambling and sometimes confusing candidate whose performance in the debate against Trump in June ended his campaign for reelection.
Biden said again in his speech that “we’re in a battle for the very soul of America” and pushed the idea that Harris and her running mate Tim Walz were the best people to lead that fight.
Biden told them, “Because of you, we’ve had the most amazing four years of progress ever, period.” Then he spoke up: “When I say ‘we,’ I mean Kamala and me.” He was sharing the credit for his most popular achievements with the vice president, to whom he had given his political operation.
Harris showed up onstage without warning as the main event of the party started Monday night to thank Biden for his leadership. She then watched his speech from the stands.
“Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, your service to our country, and all the things you’ll continue to do,” she said. “We will always be grateful to you.”
As the gathering ran more than an hour behind schedule, Biden’s speech, which was supposed to be the main event of the night, was moved to late at night.
The president talked about the “unite the right” gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 where torch-carrying white supremacists marched. He says that event solidified his decision to run for president in 2020, even though he is still sad about the death of his son Beau Biden.
Biden said, “I could not stay on the sidelines.” “I ran.” I had planned not to run again. I had just lost a piece of my soul. But I ran because I was sure.
Biden was proud of the things that his government had done well, like putting a cap on the price of insulin and spending a lot more on infrastructure. He said that more money went to states that lean Republican than to states that lean Democratic because “the job of the president is to deliver for all of America.”
He added, “Thank you Kamala too,” as the crowd chanted “thank you, Joe.”
Biden said that choosing Harris as his running mate was the best thing he had ever done. He called her a “close friend.” He also promised to be the “best volunteer” that Harris and Walz had ever seen and help the new Democratic ticket win.
“I gave my best to you for 50 years,” he told those who were still listening.
Democrats were fighting over foreign policy, political strategy, and even Biden himself not long ago. After a terrible debate, Biden was trying to hold on by saying he had a better chance of beating Trump than any other Democrat, even Harris.
On Monday, Biden said he didn’t have a grudge against the many people in the crowd who had pushed him out, and he asked the party to come together behind Harris. Biden said of Trump, “I never have and I promise you Kamala Harris will never do it. She is bowing down to Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
He said, “She’ll be a president we can all be proud of.”
In her speech minutes before Biden took the stage, First Lady Jill Biden talked about how hard it was for her husband to quit the race. Some weeks ago, she said, “I saw him dig deep into his soul and decide not to run for reelection and instead support Kamala Harris.” This made her fall in love with him all over again.
Still, there was no doubt that the Democratic Party would have been in a lot worse shape if Biden had stuck with his campaign, even though there were growing worries about his mental and physical health after he had trouble finishing his sentences in the debate against Trump.
Democrats each said nice things about Biden’s leadership and his choice of Harris to replace him. Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, who has known Joe Biden for a long time and is close with him, led the crowd in a song of “we love Joe.”
In order to connect Biden and Harris to what the party sees as the most popular things the current administration has done, they brought the country out of the COVID-19 pandemic, pushed for huge investments in the country’s infrastructure, worked to lower healthcare costs, and supported clean energy.
Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina said, “Thanks to Joe and Kamala, we lowered the cost of prescription drugs, fixed roads and bridges, and replaced lead pipes.” Clyburn’s support for Biden in the 2020 primary was very important to his victory. Choosing Kamala Harris to be Biden’s vice president and supporting her to take over as president was one of his best choices, he said.
Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state, praised Harris and said she had the ability to break the “highest, hardest glass ceiling” and become America’s first female president. Clinton was greeted with long applause. Clinton ran as the Democratic candidate in 2016, but Trump beat her.
Clinton used a metaphor from her concession statement eight years ago to say, “Together, we’ve put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling.” Kamala Harris is now the 47th president of the United States. She is taking the oath of office on the other side of that glass roof. When a wall comes down for one of us, it makes way for everyone else.
Clinton praised Biden for stepping down and said, “Now we are writing a new chapter in America’s story.”
To show how far the party’s reach goes across generations, Clinton, 76, spoke after New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 34, who endorsed Harris and brought up the war in Gaza for the first time at the convention. This was an issue that has divided the party’s base since Hamas’ attack on October 7 and Israel’s response.
Thousands of protesters came to Chicago outside the arena to speak out against the Biden-Harris administration’s backing for the Israeli war effort.
Many people in the crowd cheered when Ocasio-Cortez said that Harris was “working tirelessly to secure a cease-fire in Gaza and bring the hostages home.”
As he spoke, Biden pointed out the protests going on outside and inside the building, saying, “Those people out in the street have a point.” Several good people are being killed on both sides. He said again that he wanted Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease-fire deal that would also free the prisoners that Hamas took on October 7 in the attack that started the 10-month war.
Democrats also tried to keep the attention on Trump, whose criminal convictions they made fun of and who they said was only working for himself and not “for the people,” which was the theme of the night.
Sen. Mallory McMorrow of Michigan put an oversized copy of “Project 2025” on the podium and read from it. “Project 2025” is a plan for a second term for Trump that was made by the Heritage Foundation, a right think tank.
McMorrow said, “So we read it.” “Anything you think it could be.” It’s a lot worse.
Former President Trump has said in public that he has no interest in the policies described in Project 2025. However, he is close with the people who wrote it, and his campaign staff has praised their work in the past.
Democrats made abortion access a big issue for voters because they think that it will help them win, just like it has in other important races since the Supreme Court rejected Roe v. Wade two years ago. Three women who spoke on Monday said that their health care got worse because of that choice. Trump also praised his own part in getting Roe v. Wade overturned in a video that was shown during the conference.
A big union leader spoke at the Republican gathering a month ago. On Monday, Democrats used several labor leaders to appeal to a core group of party supporters. President of the United Auto Workers Shawn Fain led the crowd in shouting “Trump is a scab” as he praised Biden and Harris for supporting autoworkers who were on strike last year.
In honor of the civil rights movement, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in Chicago and currently sick with Parkinson’s disease, spoke at the gathering. A lot of people talked about the late civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, who gave an important speech at a Democratic convention in 1964.
Hamer used to work as a sharecropper and was the leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a group of people of all races who fought against Mississippi’s all-white delegates to the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Hamer spoke on August 22, 1964, which is exactly 60 years before Harris will accept the Democratic nomination and become the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to be a major party’s presidential candidate.
