Obamas to address Democratic convention following rousing Biden speech – US politics live | Democratic national convention 2024

Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance at the Democratic national convention on Monday night, taking the stage to thank Joe Biden for his service to the country.

“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!

Harris, dressed in a tan suit, kept her remarks brief, taking in the enthusiasm from the delegates and convention attenders that were on their feet cheering and chanting. “Looking out at everyone tonight, I see the beauty of our great nation,” the vice-president said.

Harris walked out to Beyoncé’s Freedom, which has become her campaign anthem. Beyoncé’s name has been floated by various sources as a potential surprise musical performance at the Democratic convention.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the Democratic national convention on Monday to demand that the US end military aid to Israel for its ongoing war in Gaza. Activists have branded Joe Biden “Genocide Joe” and called for the vice-president, Kamala Harris, to change course.

The Democrats have been eager to avoid any repeat of their Chicago convention in 1968, when anti-Vietnam war protests and a police riot led to scenes of chaos that stunned the nation and contributed to the party’s defeat in November.

The biggest protest group the Coalition to March on the DNC planned demonstrations for Monday and Thursday to coincide with Biden and Harris’s speeches. Organizers said they expected at least 20,000 activists to demonstrate, including students who protested against the war on college campuses.

On Monday, dozens of protesters appeared to break through one security fence near the convention site and several demonstrators were handcuffed and detained. During Biden’s speech, demonstrators unfurled a “Stop Arming Israel” banner, but the speech continued uninterrupted.

There was limited talk of Gaza on the convention floor, though Biden reiterated his efforts to secure a ceasefire and said:

Those protesters out in the street, they have a point – a lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides.

Joan E Greve

Joe Biden described selecting Kamala Harris as his vice-president as “the best decision I made my whole career”, and he drew a sharp contrast between her and Donald Trump. Mocking Trump over his recent conviction on 34 felony counts, Biden said:

Violent crime has dropped to the lowest level of more than 50 years, and crime will keep coming down when we put a prosecutor in the Oval Office instead of a convicted felon.

Biden landed other punches against Trump as well, attacking the Republican nominee for describing America as a “failing nation”. Biden said to loud cheers:

When he talks about America being a failing nation, he says, we’re losing. He’s the loser. He’s dead wrong.

Still, Biden made a point to credit Harris with helping to deliver change. When discussing his administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug prices, Biden said:

Guess who cast the tie-breaking vote? Vice-president, soon-to-be-president, Kamala Harris.

And when audience members repeatedly broke out in chants of “Thank you, Joe,” the president responded, “Thank you, Kamala!”

Biden urges voters to ‘preserve democracy’ in hopeful DNC speech

Joan E Greve

Just one month after making the historic choice to withdraw from the presidential race, Joe Biden took the stage at the Democratic national convention on Monday to deliver a reflective and optimistic address, urging the nation to elect Kamala Harris to protect American democracy.

Looking back on his one and only presidential term, Biden reminded Americans that he took office just two weeks after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, when the country was still in the early grips of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Yet, I believe then and I believe now, that progress was and is possible. Justice is achievable, and our best days are not behind us. They’re before us,” Biden said.

With a grateful heart, I stand before you now on this August night to report that democracy has prevailed. Democracy has delivered, and now democracy must be preserved.

Here’s a clip from Biden’s speech last night:

Reuters has some hints about what we can expect from Barack and Michelle Obama’s speeches later today.

According to the news wire’s sources, Barack Obama will outline what he believes will lift Kamala Harris to victory while also warning Democrats about the tough task they face over the next 11 weeks taking on Donald Trump in the run-up to polling day.

The former first lady is expected to emphasize the need for the country to turn the page on fear and division. In 2016, she offered a memorable catchphrase of “When they go low, we go high” in a speech supporting Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The Harris campaign said on Tuesday that it will spotlight “trusted messengers” from key battleground states over the convention’s three remaining days.

They include Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada; Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Sen. Gary Peters and Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan; Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. From Arizona, Sen. Mark Kelly will speak along with John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa.

Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina will be the last speaker before Harris accepts the Democratic nomination on Thursday.

Kamala Harris will travel on Tuesday to Milwaukee for a rally in the swing state of Wisconsin before returning to Chicago late in the evening.

Meanwhile, as Reuters reports, her opponent Donald Trump will visit a Michigan town on Tuesday one month after white supremacists rallied there.

The news has sparking renewed criticism from Democrats who accuse his campaign of stirring up racial tensions for political gain.

Trump is scheduled to talk about “crime and safety” at the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office in Howell, a town of some 10,000 people northwest of Detroit.

A Trump campaign spokesperson rejected criticism of the site of the event, promising Trump would speak against “hate of any form”.

About a dozen white supremacists chanted “Heil Hitler” and carried signs reading “White Lives Matter” during a march through downtown Howell last month. According to local media, another group of demonstrators shouted, “We love Hitler, we love Trump” from a highway overpass just outside Howell.

After the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley dropped out of the Republican primary earlier this year, some conservatives across the US continued to vote for her in subsequent primaries, casting ballots that indicated dissent within a party that has otherwise fully embraced Donald Trump.

When Haley finally announced that she would be supporting the ex-president in the upcoming election, she said that it was on him to mobilize her loyalists.

But it was the Biden campaign, not Trump’s, that actively began engaging Haley voters. “I want to be clear: There is a place for you in my campaign,” Joe Biden wrote on Twitter/X alongside an ad targeting Haley voters.

With the president out of the race now, some of those former Haley voters have organized behind Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in a political action group called Haley Voters for Harris.

You can read the full story here about the voters that have made the surprising switch

The opening day of the DNC reportedly ran more than an hour behind schedule and forced some planned speakers, including musician James Taylor, to be dropped from the program, which convention organizers attributed to sustained applause for speakers.

Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, is also due to address the DNC later today, Associated Press reports.

The second gentleman has previously described being caught by surprise by the timing of Joe Biden’s announcement that he was dropping out of his re-election campaign, saying he was in an exercise class in Los Angeles when he heard the news.

Emhoff, 59, said a friend showed him his phone with news notifications and saying: “Um, you need to look at this.’”

“Of course I didn’t have my phone, so I ran and ran and got into our car, and of course my phone is just on fire, and it’s basically, ‘Call Kamala,’ ‘Call Kamala,’ ‘Call Kamala,’ from everyone,” Emhoff continued, according to the LA Times. “And of course, the first thing she said was, ‘Where the … were you? I need you.’”

Presumably Emhoff will be better prepared for his address today.

The DNC continues today following an electrifying address from Joe Biden on Monday night. As our Washington bureau chief, David Smith, writes:

More than 20,000 stood, applauded, roared and chanted, “We love Joe.” They held tall narrow signs that said, “We ♥️ Joe” … It was the culmination of a night that for Biden must have felt either like receiving an honorary Oscar or giving the oration at his own funeral.

In the speech, he attacked Donald Trump – “You cannot say you love your country only when you win” and, as Smith says:

He was a man unburdened, liberated, unrecognisable from the doddering June debate.

You can read the full piece here.

Good morning and welcome to our coverage of the Democratic National Convention with Barack and Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders due to address the crowds in Chicago later following a rapturous reception for Joe Biden’s speech on Monday.

The Obamas’ endorsement of Kamala Harris in July was seminal in securing the Democratic presidential nomination for the current US vice-president, helping to bypass a potentially ugly internal fight.

As Ed Pilkington writes, today’s convention will also see almost 5,000 delegates from all 50 states and US territories will gather on the floor of the United Center to hold what is being billed as a “ceremonial roll call” symbolically to hand the Democratic nomination to Harris.

The event will be purely figurative: Harris was already officially elevated into that position two weeks ago through an online vote of delegates.

You can read the full story here

It follows a rousing opening day in Chicago capped by Biden’s electrifying address. Other Monday highlights include a surprise appearance by Harris herself, taking the stage to thank Biden for his service to the country. She will of course round off the convention with her main speech on Thursday. Also on Monday:

• Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the Democratic National Convention, calling for a ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel. Dozens of protesters appeared to break through one security fence near the convention site and several demonstrators were handcuffed and detained. During Biden’s speech, demonstrators unfurled a “Stop Arming Israel” banner.

• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told the convention: “America has before us a rare and precious opportunity in Kamala Harris … She understands the urgency of rent checks and groceries and prescriptions. She is as committed to our reproductive and civil rights as she is to taking on corporate greed.”

• Hillary Clinton outlined the historic nature of Harris’s nomination: “I see the freedom to look our children in the eye and say, ‘In America, you can go as far as your hard work and talent will take you,’ and mean it. And you know what? On the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris, raising her hand and taking the oath of office as our 47th president.”

• Speakers from red states gave personal accounts of the impacts of abortion bans. Hadley Duvall, from Kentucky, described how she was raped by her stepfather and became pregnant at age 12: “I can’t imagine not having a choice. But today, that’s the reality for many women and girls across the country because of Donald Trump’s abortion bans.”