DNC 2024 live: Kamala Harris pays tribute to ‘our incredible President Joe Biden’ as crowd cheers surprise appearance on stage | Democratic national convention 2024

Ankita Rao

I was on the floor of the Democratic convention when, suddenly, Beyoncé’s Freedom started playing and Kamala Harris walked in.

Here’s the scene:

Kamala Harris kept her remarks brief, departing the stage shortly after noting the diversity of the Democratic party faithful gathered in the room.

“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, and this November, we will come together and declare with one voice, as one people, we are moving forward,” the vice-president said.

“With optimism, hope and faith, so guided by our love of country, knowing we all have so much more in common than what separates us, let us fight for the ideals we hold dear, and let us always remember when we fight, we win.”

Kamala Harris is giving some introductory remarks to the crowded convention hall, telling them that tonight, they’ll pay tribute to departing president Joe Biden.

“This is going to be a great week, and I want to kick us off by celebrating our incredible President Joe Biden, who will be speaking later tonight,” she said. “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. Thank you, Joe!”

Kamala Harris has just stepped onstage at the Democratic national convention.

She’s wearing a light brown suit. The crowd is going wild.

Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and first female presidential nominee of a major party, will defend Kamala Harris’s character in her remarks to the Democratic convention tonight.

“Kamala has the character, experience, and vision to lead us forward,” Clinton will say, according to excerpts of her speech.

She will tell the convention about the background she shares with Harris as “young lawyers helping children who were abused or neglected. That kind of work changes you. Those kids stay with you. Kamala carries with her the hopes of every child she protected, every family she helped, every community she served.”

“So as president, she will always have our backs,” Clinton will say. “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.”

Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump, who she will reserve some choice words for:

Just look at the candidates. Kamala cares about kids, families, and America. Donald only cares about himself.

On her first day in court, Kamala said five words that guide her still: ‘Kamala Harris, for the people.’

That’s something Donald Trump will never understand.

Without much fanfare, Kamala Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, has arrived at the Democratic national convention:

The Minnesota governor is expected to speak on Wednesday evening.

Nancy Pelosi, congresswoman and former House speaker, was asked on CNN about any “bad blood” or “resentment” remaining between her and Joe Biden, surrounding her efforts to get the president to withdraw his candidacy.

Earlier in the day, Anita Dunn, a former senior White House adviser for Biden, said: “Nobody wants to have a fight with Nancy Pelosi at this time.” When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Pelosi to respond to that remark, she said: “Sometimes you just have to take a punch for the children.”

Pelosi continued: “He made the decision for the country. My concern was not about the president, it was about his campaign. He has seen the exuberance, the excitement that has come forth in our country.”

Austin Davis, lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, celebrated the Biden-Harris administration’s achievements on infrastructure:

President Trump promised us ‘infrastructure week’ over and over again. He really didn’t care, though, and it never happened. But President Biden and Vice-President Harris are on our side. They brought together Democrats and Republicans to get it done. We got I-95 in Philly fixed in less than two weeks.

The lieutenant governors of Wisconsin and California, and the county judge of Harris county, Texas also just spoke, praising the Biden-Harris administration’s achievements and offering personal stories about Harris’s support for their efforts in their states.

Bernie Sanders: ‘Trump is the most dangerous candidate’ in US history

David Smith

Senator Bernie Sanders has offered his take on why the Democratic party rallied around Kamala Harris so quickly – and why he did not seek the presidential nomination himself.

“I think what most of us – and I think most of the American people I hope – believe is that it’s absolutely imperative that Donald Trump is defeated,” Sanders, 82, said at a CNN Politico Grill event in Chicago. “Trump is the most dangerous candidate, I think, in the history of this country. I think he lies all of the time in just absolutely preposterous ways so I think there is a consensus that he has to be beaten.”

Sanders, who ran for president in both 2016 and 2020, added: “I am happy right now to be a United States senator. I’m running for election to Vermont – that’s keeping me busy.

“But I think there was a general consensus that Kamala Harris has done a good job as vice-president, that she would be a strong candidate and the alternative is to open up some kind of wild debate which would fracture the party a little bit is probably not a good idea.”

He continued: “I think she’s a very strong candidate. We shouldn’t be overly confident but I think she is generating a lot of energy among young people. I think many of them would have voted for Biden but I think they’re more energetic about her candidacy and I look forward to her winning the election. I’m going to do everything I can to make that possible.”

Sanders lavished praise on Joe Biden’s legislative achievements but offered blunt criticism of the president’s unwavering support for Israel’s war in Gaza. “On domestic issues Biden has been the most progressive since FDR. I’ve worked with them in so many ways. On this issue he’s wrong.”

Asked if Biden and Harris have differences over Gaza, the senator answered: “My honest answer is I don’t know any more than I’ve read.”

What does he hope Biden will say on Monday night? “My one criticism of the Biden administration is I don’t think they have been as articulate as they should be about their accomplishments. They’ve done a lot more than the average American knows. Maybe he’ll review some of those major accomplishments.”

Check out footage of a gospel choir’s rendition of the US national anthem, which received a standing ovation at the convention:

Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO trade union federation, said Americans would choose between “two economic visions” at the ballot box in November.

“This election is about two economic visions, one where families live paycheck to paycheck, where people have no right to join a union – a CEO’s dream, but a worker’s nightmare,” she said.

The other choice is “an opportunity economy where we lower the costs of groceries, prescriptions and housing; where we go after big pharma, corporate landlords and price gougers; where there’s no such thing as a man’s job or a woman’s job, or like Donald Trump would say, a Black job, just a good union job,” she said.

“That’s the future our president, Joe Biden, has fought for, and that’s the future Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will keep fighting for.”

Here are some photos from inside the United Center in Chicago as the first night of the Democratic national convention got under way:

The pool reporter traveling with Kamala Harris reports that she has arrived at the United Center.

We have not laid eyes on her yet, and she is not expected to speak tonight. We expect her to enter the convention hall at some point and watch the speakers.

The convention just heard from Dick Durbin, Illinois’s long-serving Democratic senator.

“Donald Trump is like a bad boss,” Durbin said. Then he explained:

You want time off to take care of your sick parents? Ask Donald Trump – denied. In Donald Trump’s America, there is no paid family leave. Want to have a child, but need IVF, too bad, that’s shut down. You want a pay raise? Too bad, the boss just gave himself one so there’s nothing left for you. Donald Trump reminds us of a boss we all had, the guy who thinks he’s a very stable genius but is driving the company into the ground.

Now, get this. Donald Trump did make history. Let’s give him credit. He is one of only two presidents in the history of the United States to leave office with fewer Americans working than when he started. Now he wants a chance to make America unemployed again.

On stage now are Sandra Abrevaya and her husband, Brian Wallach, who suffers from ALS.

Wallach cannot speak, but Abrevaya is talking about the Biden administration’s efforts to help people suffering from the neurodegenerative disease.

“Brian and I are still driven by hope and by faith in what we can do collectively, and that includes the power of our vote. This November, we are voting for our future,” she said.

At their convention last month, the GOP didn’t talk much about the Covid-19 pandemic.

But the Democrats clearly see political advantage in doing so, with California congressman Robert Garcia hitting out at Donald Trump for his handling of the virus, in a speech to the convention.

“Like many of you, I watched in terror and horror as the Covid pandemic consumed our lives. As mayor, I fought for more hospital beds, for more tests and to make masks more accessible. What we needed at that moment was national leadership, but instead, we got Donald Trump,” said Garcia, who was mayor of Long Beach, California, when the virus broke out.

Like Flanagan, he noted how the virus had affected his own family:

While schools closed and dead bodies filled morgues, Donald Trump downplayed the virus. He told us to inject bleach into our bodies. He peddled conspiracy theories across the country. We lost hundreds of thousands of Americans, and our economy collapsed.

Now, that summer of 2020 my mom and my stepfather both died of the Covid pandemic, and I miss them every single day. So when Donald Trump and his Maga extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene downplay the horror of the pandemic, it should make us all furious.

Peggy Flanagan, the lieutenant-governor of Minnesota who just spoke at the Democratic convention, is on track to make history if Kamala Harris wins.

Flanagan, who told the convention about being a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, will take over as governor of Minnesota, if Tim Walz, the current governor, steps down to serve as vice-president. That would make Flanagan the first Indigenous woman to serve as a US governor and also be the first female governor in the state’s history.

She is already the highest-ranking Indigenous woman in a state-level executive office. And, if Flanagan becomes governor, Minnesota’s senate president, Bobby Joe Champion, would become the state’s first Black lieutenant governor.

Democratic convention speakers have been emphasizing the importance of diversity in the party, a sharp contrast to the Republican convention. More on Flanagan here: