“America, I Gave My Best to You”: Joe Biden Gives One of the Biggest Speeches of His Career at DNC
President Joe Biden was the man of the hour as the 2024 Democratic National Convention closed its first night in Chicago on Monday, where the career political animal, who has sacrificed everything for his party, received a standing ovation as the crowd broke into a chant of “Thank you, Joe!”
Ashley Biden, the president’s 43-year-old daughter with his wife first lady Jill Biden, invoked her late brother, Beau, while introducing her dad to the massive crowd at the United Center. “I know that Beau is here with us tonight, as he is always with us,” she said, then embracing her father for a full 20 seconds before the crowd applauded the sitting president for four and a half minutes.
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“America, I love you,” Biden declared as he began one of the most watched speeches of his life. In the address, he combined elements of his stump speech, touting his achievements during his single term and invoking this election cycle as an existential threat to democracy. Biden’s inherent sense of defiance — an attribute that kept him in the race for weeks after his performance at the first debate — was all over his speech, whether speaking of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, white nationalists or the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol.
“You can’t say you love the country only when you win,” Biden said of Trump, without saying “Trump.” He raised his voice several times throughout the speech.
Speaking of the GOP’s three-time candidate, he later added, “He’s the loser. He’s dead wrong,” while referring to his late-career political rival’s notion of America as a failing nation.
Harris’ bona fides were an important topic throughout the night and Biden, who had gone through an exhaustive process in selecting her as his running mate, told the audience that bringing her onto the ticket was the best decision he’s made throughout his career, since entering politics in 1973. “Like many of our best presidents, she was also vice president,” he said.
“America, I gave my best to you,” Biden said from the podium. “I made a lot of mistakes in my career, but I gave my best to you.”
After his speech concluded, Harris entered the stage for the second time that night, accompanied by her husband, Doug Emhoff. At a point, she seemed to mouth “love you” to the president.
The electric applause was a theme throughout the night and ultimately led to a shift in plans from convention organizers, who skipped elements of their preplanned program — including an appearance from James Taylor — in order to ensure enough time for Biden’s speech.
“Because of the raucous applause interrupting speaker after speaker, we ultimately skipped elements of our program to ensure we could get to President Biden as quickly as possible so that he could speak directly to the American people,” convention officials told The Hollywood Reporter. “We are proud of the electric atmosphere in our convention hall and proud that our convention is showcasing the broad and diverse coalition behind the Harris-Walz ticket throughout the week on and off the stage.”
Hillary Clinton also returned to the DNC stage Monday, addressing the packed United Center in Chicago and throwing all of her political clout behind Harris.
Clinton spoke of Harris’ background as an attorney, her character and the fact that history will be made if she is to become the first female U.S. president.
The former secretary of State received a hero’s welcome from those in the crowd, returning to the major Democratic event after she ran in 2016 to be the nation’s first female president but lost the electoral vote to Trump while winning the popular vote by millions. Speaking on Trump’s recent criminal conviction, Clinton watched the crowd yell, “Lock him up!” — a phrase used against her eight years ago at MAGA rallies.
“We have to fight for Kamala, as she will fight for us, because … it takes a village to raise a family, heal a country and win a campaign,” Clinton said to the stadium. “And America needs every one of us, our energy, our talents and our dreams. We’re not just electing a president. We’re uplifting our nation. We’re opening the promise of America wide enough for everyone. Together, we put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest ceiling, and tonight, tonight, [we are] so close to breaking through once and for all.”
Clinton spoke with great passion about electing Harris and kept on her campaign theme of freedom from fear, intimidation, injustice, chaos and corruption.
“On the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris raising her hand and taking the oath of office,” she said.
Clinton received massive applause when her speech concluded. She exited to Rachel Platten‘s “Fight Song,” her 2016 campaign theme.
In the previous hour of the event, the crowd went into a roar as Harris made a surprise appearance onstage and led the crowd in a chant of, “When we fight, we win!”
A Harris campaign video introduced her surprise appearance at the convention, where she was not expected to speak until Thursday night when she officially accepts the party’s nomination. Harris’ campaign caught fire almost immediately and she has surged past Trump in several national polls as well as in battleground states. Polls released this weekend show the Harris-Trump presidential face-off in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin has the Democrat up 50-46 on the GOP nominee.
After Harris’ brief appearance, Steve Kerr, the coach of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors who led Team USA to take the Gold at the Paris Olympics, gave a speech on leadership and endorsed Harris’ skills. He also nodded to her running mate Gov. Tim Walz’s football coaching, saying “Coach to coach? That guy’s awesome.”
Monday’s DNC theme is “For the People,” with celebrity host Tony Goldwyn of Scandal fame. Dr. Jill Biden, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson were also among the speakers.
What a difference six years have made for Ocasio-Cortez. The representative for parts of the Bronx and Queens unseated the 2018 incumbent from a political dynasty by running far to the left. When she entered Congress, she went viral after becoming a pest to the Democratic establishment and has been a polarizing figure since. She was also the would-be punching bag for the political right (if she didn’t so deftly punch back).
In Chicago, AOC was given a warm reception as she spoke out against Trump and for Harris, empathizing with families struggling with the cost of living. But the 34-year-old mostly swung at the former president, telling the crowd, “Donald Trump would sell this country for a dollar and grease the palms of his Wall Street friends.” The United Center ate it up.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear used his time for remarks before the entire party to focus on abortion rights and appeal to Republicans and independents to vote for Harris. Beshear is a true rarity: a Democratic governor in a conservative red state (Mitch McConnell land, at that) who boasts a high approval rating. As a political anomaly, his name graced the short list of potential running mates to join Harris on the Democrats’ ticket.
On the entertainment front, Jason Isbell took to the stage to play his song “Something More Than Free,” the title track of his fifth studio album. The song is about the working-class man who finds himself too exhausted for church on Sunday.
“And I don’t think on why I’m here or where it hurts / I’m just lucky to have the work / And every night I dream I’m drowning in the dirt / But I thank God for the work,” Isbell sang. The six-time Grammy winner, once a member of the beloved Alabama rock group Drive-By Truckers, told The New York Times that he feels the song speaks to the current political moment.
The convention began with a bang of the gavel by Jaime Harrison, who was the first African American elected to chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, which he left to become chair of the DNC. Harrison gave rousing opening remarks that concluded with a call to “save our democracy with our MVP, Kamala Harris and our coach, Tim Walz!” The energy in the stadium — which was not quite filled to the bleachers with delegates and other attendees — was high as Rep. Maxine Waters was then introduced.
Waters, 86, roused the crowd further by sharing an anecdote about civil rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer, who delivered a famous, harrowing speech in front of the 1964 DNC’s Credentials Committee, in which she asked, “Is this America?” Waters then segued to Harris.
“Our nominee is no better leader to marshal us into the future,” Waters said. “Kamala has been a courtroom prosecutor, a district attorney, an attorney general, a United States senator, vice president of the United States. And when the dust settles in November and Americans of all stripes have elected her president, I know she’ll be thinking about Fannie Lou. … In that moment, all of us, from New York to Pennsylvania to Arizona to California — we can ask ourselves, ‘Is this America?’ And we will be able to say loudly and proudly, ‘You’re damn right it is.'”
Following Waters was civil rights icon Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, who has Parkinson’s disease and uses a wheelchair. While Jackson, who ran for president in 1988, is no longer able to speak because of the disease, he was wheeled onto the United Center’s stage alongside his family. The 82-year-old blew a kiss to the crowd, a moment that brought many people to tears.
When Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a final contender for Harris’ VP job in 2020, took to the podium, she sang her longtime colleague’s praises. Bass, who for 11 years served in the House of Representatives and in the California State Assembly from 2004 to 2010, took a moment to acknowledge Harris’ move as California’s attorney general to create the state’s Bureau of Children’s Justice and spoke of how, as their careers go back 20 years together as California political figures, she even had Harris swear her in as L.A.’s mayor in 2023.
“We knew we were sending a message to young women everywhere that they can lead,” Bass said of that moment last year. “She feels the importance of this work in her bones. When Kamala meets a young person, you can feel her passion, you can feel that in her heart, and you can feel her fearlessness, that she is willing to fight for every child. Trust me, Kamala has done this her entire life.”
In a voice vote from the convention floor, delegates overwhelmingly approved the vice presidential pick, Gov. Walz of Minnesota, breaking into chants of “U.S.A.!”
Meanwhile, “Union yes!” was heard being chanted by the crowd as five heads of major labor unions — the AFSCME, SEIU, LIUNA, IBEW and AFL-CIO — took the stage. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers President Kenny Cooper told the crowd that Harris is “bringing back American jobs” and “she’s not afraid to use the word ‘union.’”
One of the few white men on the UC stage Monday night was Sen. Dick Durbin, who took to the podium and went on the attack against former President Trump, quipping that the “very stable genius” was the first president to leave the office with fewer Americans working than when he took the oath. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow of Michigan doubled down on such attacks, bringing out a large novelty-size book representing the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump administration, the not-so-secret weapon the Democrats are using to frighten voters away from the GOP.
“Page 873, it says, quote, ‘Conservatives have long believed in either ending law enforcement activities of independent agencies or ending their independent status,'” McMorrow said. “That sounds pretty boring, but what it means is that under Project 2025, Donald Trump would be able to weaponize the Department of Justice to go after his political opponents. He could even turn the FBI into his own personal police force.”
This story was first published on Aug. 19 at 4:44 p.m.
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