President Joe Biden delivered a poignant yet forceful call to support Vice President Kamala Harris as he ceded to her the Democratic presidential nomination in keynoting the opening night of the party’s national convention.
“It’s been the honor of my lifetime to serve as your President. I love the job, but I love my country more,” Biden said in a nearly 50 minute address, frequently interrupted by delegates shouting “Thank you, Joe” and waving “I (heart) Joe” signs.
“And all this talk about how I’m angry at all those people who said I should step down. That’s not true. I love my country more, and we need to preserve our democracy in 2024. We need you to vote. We need you to keep the Senate. We need you to win back the House of Representatives. And, above all, we need you to beat Donald Trump,” he said as Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, watched from a box at the United Center.
Biden said his decision to pick Harris as his 2020 running mate was the best he ever made.
“She’ll be a president our children can look up to. She’ll be a president respected by world leaders because she already is. She’ll be a president we can all be proud of, and she will be a historic president who puts her stamp on America’s future,” Biden said.
The opening night program, with scores of speakers, ran later than scheduled, putting Biden’s much-anticipated address past television prime-time.
But the delegates were unwavering in their support for Biden throughout his speech as he detailed a litany of accomplishments by his administration and shared the praise with Harris.
Biden labeled Trump a “sucker” and called him “crazy” and warned that the fate of democracy was at stake in the Nov. 5 general election.
“All of us carry a special obligation. Independents, Republicans, Democrats. We saved democracy in 2020 and now we must save it again in 2024,” he said of defeating Trump four years ago. “The votes we cast this year will determine whether democracy and freedom will prevail. It’s that simple, it’s that serious, and the power is literally in your hands. History is in your hands.”
Biden also noted that, while he’s a lame duck, he has five months left in his presidency and that he intends to use that time to work on a Middle East cease fire in Israel’s war with Hamas that has caused tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza.
“We’ll keep working to bring hostages home and end the war in Gaza and bring peace and security to the Middle East,” Biden said. He also pledged efforts to “surge humanitarian health and food assistance into Gaza now to end the civilian suffering of the Palestinian people.”
And taking note of a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the United Center earlier in the day over U.S. military support to Israel, Biden said, “Those protesters out in the street have a point. A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.”
Delegates and convention speakers spent the day trying to strike a balance between thanking the 81-year-old Biden for his four years as president and looking forward to promoting Harris, 59, as Democrats aim to retain the White House and prevent Trump, the 78-year-old former Republican president, from reclaiming it.
In doing a walkthrough of the United Center and convention stage prior to his speech, Biden told reporters, “It’s a memorable moment.”
Asked about Trump’s claim that he was ousted from the ticket in what amounts to a coup, Biden said: “His stability is still in question.”
Prior to Biden’s arrival at the United Center, Harris made a brief surprise, on-stage appearance to the sound of wild cheers from the delegates and referenced Biden’s half-century political career.
“Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation and for all you will continue to do. We are forever grateful to you,” Harris told the convention.
“Looking out at everyone tonight, I see the beauty of our great nation. People from every corner of our country and every walk of life are here, united by our shared vision for the future of our country,” she said. “And this November, we will come together and declare with one voice, as one people, we are moving forward with optimism, hope and faith.”
In an effort to demonstrate an opening round display of unity around the newly minted Democratic ticket of Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the party featured an array of speakers, including progressive U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and other labor leaders, former Chicago Bulls star and current Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The appearance by Clinton, who was born in Chicago and grew up in northwest suburban Park Ridge, was a tribute to her 2016 unsuccessful bid for president against Trump. Clinton was the first woman to become a major party presidential nominee.
Greeted by a lengthy standing ovation from delegates, Clinton sought to leverage her historic campaign role to Harris’ benefit, saying “something is happening in America,” adding “something we’ve worked for and dreamed of for a long time.”
“The story of my life and the history of our country is that progress is possible, but not guaranteed. We have to fight for it and never, ever give up. There is always a choice. Do we push forward or pull back? Come together as ‘We The People’ or split into us versus them? That’s the choice we face in this election,” Clinton said.
“As president, she will always have our backs. She will fight to lower costs for hard-working families, open the doors wide for good paying jobs. And, yes, she will restore abortion rights nationwide,” she said of Harris.
Clinton also hailed Biden as “democracy’s champion at home and abroad.”
“He brought dignity, decency and confidence back to the White House. And he showed what it means to be a true patriot. Thank you, Joe,” she said as the crowd followed with chants of “Thank you, Joe.”
Delegates also honored the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in Chicago. In addition to his civil rights work, Jackson unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1984 and 1988 — the first Black person to win a major party’s state primary or caucus, a feat unmatched until Barack Obama in 2008.
Clinton and Jackson’s role at the convention provided a foundation to salute Harris, the first Black and Asian American woman to win a major party nomination.
Setting the stage for Biden’s evening valedictory with first lady Jill Biden — the two arrived in Chicago in the afternoon and were set to fly to California for a vacation afterward — were convention speeches from Mayor Brandon Johnson welcoming the delegates to Chicago and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois’ senior senator and the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. Durbin, who served with Biden in the Senate, met the president earlier Monday when he arrived in Chicago.
Johnson spoke to the city’s progressive political legacy as home of Jackson and Obama, who made Chicago his home as a community organizer and who is scheduled to address the convention Tuesday.
“Now Chicago — this city of hard work and caring people — is where Democrats will celebrate President Joe Biden, and nominate Kamala Harris for president of the United States of America,” Johnson said.
“As a Black man raising a little Black girl on the West Side of Chicago, I know that my daughter, Braedyn, will see not only a reflection of herself in the White House but she will experience the deepest part of American values,” he said, citing Harris’ historic candidacy.
“Together we can build a better, brighter future, and there’s no better place to start that than right here in the greatest freakin’ city in the world, the city of Chicago,” he said.
Durbin assailed the effect of Trump’s presidency on workers, saying “he wants a chance to make America unemployed again,” while under Biden and Harris “they recovered all those millions of jobs Trump watched slip away. They added over six million jobs on top of that — 16 million jobs in total, 16 million.”
“Donald Trump reminds us of a boss we’ve all had — the guy who thinks he’s ‘a very stable genius,’ but is driving the company into the ground,” the Illinois senator said.
Citing Ed Smith, the powerful late downstate union activist and former head of the Laborers International Union of North America who died in January, Durbin said “there’s joy in this battle.”
“When we win, we help people buy their first home, send their kids to college and retire with dignity,” noting his background from a “strong union family” from Granite City. “That’s the American economy Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are fighting for. Let’s join that fight and build it together.”
U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, a third-term Democrat from Naperville, used her speech to criticize Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and promote the Democrats’ efforts to bolster health care coverage.”
“He took the COVID crisis and turned it into a catastrophe. We can never let him be our president again,” Underwood, 37, a registered nurse and former Obama administration official, said of Trump.
“Four years ago, it was not safe to hold a convention like this. But tonight, thousands have gathered in this arena in my home state of Illinois to make sure Kamala Harris is the next president of the United States,” she said. “We have come so far these past four years and we’re not going back.”
The convention’s opening, nearly a year and a half in the making, marked an anxious time for the city, its leaders and residents amid talk of random protests and disruptive behavior.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators amassed near the United Center to march against U.S. military support of Israel. But what organizers portrayed as the largest rally of the week, billed as a march on the DNC, didn’t produce the tens of thousands of protesters they had predicted. It is uncertain what that will mean for the rest of the week.
The crowd, numbered in the thousands, started marching west on Washington Boulevard shortly before 3 p.m. after more than two hours of speeches in Union Park, which is a few blocks to the east.
In one of the most notable incidents, a group of protesters forced open an outer perimeter security fence along Washington about two blocks north of the United Center. Law enforcement officials said personnel were immediately on the scene and contained the situation. At no point was the inner perimeter breached, the officials said.
The convention began with the morning hotel breakfasts of the state delegations — a traditional daily pep rally to try to build enthusiasm among delegates for the evening’s events.
In addition to addressing his home state delegation, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also played the role of campaign surrogate. Pritzker shook hands and spoke with Walz while the Minnesota governor appeared before delegates from the critical swing state of Pennsylvania. Pritzker was on the short list of finalists as Harris’ running mate before she tapped Walz for the post.
Dozens of delegates in blazers and lanyards pulled their phones out to snap photos of the Democratic heavy hitters.
“Seventy-eight days. You can do anything for 78 days. We’ll sleep when we’re dead,” Walz said, echoing a line he used after being introduced by Harris as her running mate.
Walz told the delegates to think about “looking at your children, waking up on that sunny November morning and being able to smile and say, ‘My God, we elected a woman president.’”
Pritzker, after speaking to Illinois delegates at the downtown Royal Sonesta hotel, dodged reporters’ questions about his own political future with the governor’s office on the ballot in two years.
Pritzker said that serving out two terms would make him the state’s longest serving Democratic governor.
“I’m not suggesting that I want to try to beat Jim Thompson’s 14-year record,” Pritzker said, referencing the late Republican governor who served from 1977 to 1991. “My wife’s not here and I don’t want anybody talking to her about this stuff. But she is my term limit, so if all of you want to talk to her, convince her one way or another, by the way, you’re welcome to do that.”
Asked about a possible third term, Pritzker said, “I’m not thinking about any other terms other than the one I’m serving in.”
In a clip released Monday by Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” Pritzker was more candid than he previously publicly revealed about his feelings toward a continued Biden candidacy before he dropped out of the presidential race last month.
“A lot of us were concerned about the direction of the election and whether Joe Biden was going to be able to be competitive because the polls weren’t looking good,” Pritzker said in an interview taped last week during a bar crawl with correspondent Jordan Klepper for the show’s broadcasts from Chicago during the DNC this week.
Prompted by Klepper in the edited video, Pritzker said “there were governors talking” but insisted Democratic governors didn’t push Biden out of the race. In lighter moments on the crawl, Pritzker also took a Malort shot and said he came up with the “hashtag” #BallsToTheWalz to describe his support for Walz, the vice presidential nominee.
Republican supporters of Trump conducted their own counterprogramming efforts at Trump Tower downtown.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida repeated the attempts the former president has made to frame his Democratic opponent as a socialist while playing on voter concerns about inflation.
“Here’s a choice,” Scott said. “Donald Trump is a business guy who understands how businesses work. Harris has no idea how businesses work. The vice president pick (Walz) has no idea how businesses work. They’ve not built businesses.”
Flanked by signs highlighting what Republicans described as price increases during the Democratic administration in groceries, baby formula, meat and baking goods, Scott said he spent time as a child in public housing in Illinois and pointed to what he called high energy prices and the costs to business of Democrats’ regulatory policies.
“I want a free market, I want a bottom-up economy, I want capitalism. That’s what Trump stands for,” Scott said. “What Harris stands for is what Maduro and Chavez brought to Venezuela.”
Chicago Tribune’s Olivia Olander, Jeremy Gorner, Olivia Stevens, Sarah Freishtat, Alice Yin and Dan Petrella contributed.
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