DNC Night 1: Joe Biden Passes The Torch To Next Generation
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Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, Senior National Political Correspondent. And it's 11.56 p.m. Central Time on Monday, August 19th. And we're here at the United Center in Chicago, where the first night of the Democratic National Convention concluded a short time ago. And Mara, in a lot of ways, the theme of tonight was about passing the torch, generational change.

President Joe Biden was, of course, the keynote speaker, but former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton also spoke. I wish my mother and Kamala's mother could see us. They would say, keep going. Shirley and Jerry would say, keep going. It's been the honor of my lifetime to serve as your president. I love the job, but I love my country more.

Biden's speech was a real valedictory moment. He talked a lot about his legacy, a lot about what he's accomplished, but he

He understands that part of his legacy is going to be whether or not he can prevent Donald Trump from coming back into the White House, meaning he has to elect Kamala Harris. And he did say, my very first decision and my best decision was picking her. So he endorsed her. He talked about all the things they'd done together.

But the other thing that really struck me was, first of all, how emotional he was. It was very personal. It was bittersweet. The crowd was giving him minutes-long ovations. Thank you, Joe. We love you, Joe. But I couldn't help thinking that the translation of those chants were, we love you, Joe, for stepping aside before we had to shove you out the door ourselves.

Tim, it's a really small point, but we should note that Biden started extraordinarily late tonight. It was very late, and it was because the program slipped. Vice President Harris was a surprise visit. She came out on stage earlier in the night, spoke briefly, and the crowd went absolutely wild when that happened. That, of course, meant that she was in the room for President Biden's speech.

His speech spent a lot of time going over territory that we've heard him go over before. It almost sounded like the speech he would have given had he been the nominee. It was his stump speech in many respects. It was the speech he would have given. And I think that what that points out is the speech that he gave tonight was...

darker. It was less joyful. There were moments of anger. There were broadsides on Trump that Harris is not delivering in the same way. I think that it was a very clear reminder of the campaign that would have been and that that campaign is not the campaign that will be because Vice President Harris...

as she likes to say, is running a joyful campaign. It is a campaign about optimism and the future. And Biden's speech, you know, went over the, it talked about Charlottesville and why he ran and the Nazis with the tiki torches and all of this stuff that Harris just doesn't dwell on in the way that Biden does and did in this speech and has in all of his speeches. Sure.

She has a different way of describing the danger that Trump poses. Instead of a threat to democracy, which is the formulation that Biden uses, that's pretty abstract for most voters. She talks about how Trump is going to take away your freedoms, whether it's reproductive rights or your freedom to have your kids free from the fear of gun violence in school. So she has a different way of coming at this. The rhetoric between Biden and Harris...

You really saw the difference tonight, like both the tone, the message. They really are very different in delivering the same ideas, essentially. The same ideas, the same policy proposals, more or less. And yet with totally different vibes, if you will. Yeah.

Tim, I also think it's worth focusing for a minute tonight on Hillary Clinton. Because for those of us who all three of us covered 2016, it was almost a moment of deja vu. She came out dressed in all white, which she did. Suffragette white. Which she also did in 2016 and during her acceptance speech, very symbolic for women, obviously. But she received, I think, one of the loudest and most raucous receptions of the evening in

and gave a speech that really did focus on women and this moment for women in politics. And she drew a line from Shirley Chisholm to Geraldine Ferraro, who was the vice presidential nominee in 1984, to her own campaign that didn't break that highest, hardest glass ceiling to now Vice President Harris, making the case that every time someone shows what is possible, it makes sense.

for other people to follow. And she made the argument and then the room was on board with it that Vice President Harris should be the first female president and that Vice President Harris should make that history that she had tried to make. However, Vice President Harris is not running to break any glass ceiling. Not at all. She never talks about it. Identity politics are not part of her playbook. And that, to me, is really interesting. First of all, they're kind of obvious that she would be the first female

African-American, South Asian female president if she's elected. But I think that she understands that people don't vote for you because you're the first of anything. They vote for you because they think you can make their lives better. I think to be running as a woman after Hillary Clinton is...

It means that the choices are more obvious, and we know the choice that Kamala Harris has made. But, you know, I want to make this point that there is one person running on identity politics in this race, and it's Donald Trump. There is nothing that beats white identity politics in America, and he is a master practitioner at it. He injects race and gender politics.

all the time. One of the things to me about tonight, too, and this is true of all conventions, but it is a spotlight for next generation. Who are going to be the stars of the convention? And there was a couple standout speeches tonight from people like freshman Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett of Texas and also Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democrat from New York. And I, for one, am tired of hearing about how a two-bit union buster thinks of himself as

as more of a patriot than the woman who fights every single day to lift working people out to breathe, traveling on our way of life. Tim, to me, this speech was notable because Ocasio-Cortez was one of Biden's loudest, strongest defenders for why he should stay in the race.

and pivoted tonight to giving a bit of a barn burner for why the party needs to rally behind Kamala Harris. Well, and part of her argument for Biden staying in the race is that all the people who were calling for him to get out didn't have a plan of what would come next. Well, it turns out Biden ultimately had a plan of what would come next, and that was Vice President Harris, who he endorsed right away. Ocasio-Cortez is an interesting figure in the Democratic Party because, you know, she's part of the squad. She's, you know, this liberal firebrand or whatever. But actually, she is like...

She is a good party soldier who falls in line and delivers it in a way that...

makes it seem like she's edgy. And doesn't lose credibility with the base. Yeah. Right. But preserves her viability within the system, as Bill Clinton once famously said, because unlike other members of the squad, she has a political future in New York. And she understands that. Also Biden getting out, and Biden when he was in the race, there was this whole debate about age and generational change in the party. But tonight to me also, so

shown that there is a ton of generational talent within the Democratic Party. Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, spoke. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic senator from Georgia, someone that people talk about, someone who could run for president one day. It did seem like Biden getting out has lifted the cap off the enthusiasm jar. There's been a big, big lid on the Democratic Party. And it was the Democratic Party, which has tremendous strength with young voters, minority voters, and

There were so many old people that made up that live, the Clintons, you know, Biden. And now that they that that's been lifted, look how much pent up enthusiasm there was. Yeah. I mean, it was it was incredible. You know, one other thing, one other theme that I that I felt was was present tonight is this whole battle for working class voters. Yeah.

Obviously, Donald Trump's making a big play. He and J.D. Vance want to transform the Republican Party into the Working Man's Party without being for raising the minimum wage and all sorts of other economic things that might help working class people. But tonight we heard from Sean Fain, who was the UAW president, who did a kind of Hulk Hogan style reveal when he took off his jacket and his T-shirt said Trump is a scab.

And that, I think he really laid down the gauntlet to say, you're for working people, well, let's do something more than just give them some cultural war red meat. There was union leaders who were featured tonight, and to me it seemed a little bit of a tit-for-tat for the fact that the Teamsters had spoke at the Republican National Convention, and there was some disturbances in the union, in the labor movement because of that. Right, well, the Teamsters have in the past endorsed many Republican candidates, but

But yes, it was two Seans, you know, and this tonight, Sean Fain really laid it down. So that I thought was another theme. All right, let's take a quick break. But please remember to hit the follow button on our show if you haven't already. We're going to be bringing you all the news from the convention this week. More in a bit.

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And we're back. And tonight also made clear in very stark terms how much Democrats are focused on abortion and reproductive rights in this election. Several women spoke about their experiences, including Hadley Duvall. She's a Kentucky woman who became the face of reproductive rights in the state during Democratic Governor Andy Beshear's successful reelection campaign last year. Duvall was raped at the age of 12 by her stepfather, and she ultimately miscarried. 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. He calls it a beautiful thing. What is so beautiful about a child having to carry her parents' child?

Tim, that was a very jarring message to hear. And it was also a moment where you could sort of feel the energy shift inside the convention hall. The screens that had been blue with stars were all black. It was somber. You could hear a pin drop in the room. It was so quiet. There was a couple that started out this section talking about their pregnancy challenge where the mother had to be

actually too ill to receive treatment because of abortion restrictions in their state. And the father was nearly in tears. It was really powerful. And it is quite something to put these abortion stories in

in prime time, on television, into people's homes. This is an issue that we know Democrats are going to run on. They've been running on. We saw it in 2022. It is ever so much more present in 2024, in part because there are all of these ballot measures in key swing states, among others, that would enshrine a right to abortion in state constitutions.

And Vice President Harris is much more comfortable talking about abortion than President Biden, which we saw even tonight where he sort of stumbled in that section. Later, he did say the word abortion, but it was it was not an area of comfort in his speech. And it is something that Harris talks about. They they included, in fact, abortion.

In an earlier video introducing Harris and talking about her standing up for her friends in elementary school, they also talked about her coming to the aid of a friend who was being abused. Yeah, Arizona and Nevada are the two states that have abortion-related referenda. And we know that every single place that there's been an abortion rights ballot measure, even in red states,

abortion rights has won since the Dobbs decision. But I also thought it was interesting that with the exception of Hadley Duvall, which is a horrific story, the other women were all women who needed abortions because something had gone wrong with their pregnancies and they needed the abortion in order to preserve their fertility because they wanted more kids, not because they didn't want kids. They wanted more kids.

I think that's a very important point and very compelling to a lot of people because these were women who were seeking abortions for pregnancies that they did not want to lose. I want to ask you both this because I was in D.C. for the Republican National Convention hosting for there, but I know you were both there. We're obviously all in Chicago tonight.

I'm curious about just your sense about the vibe and what it feels like to be here. I will say it seems like there is a level of enthusiasm that could not have compared if Joe Biden had stuck on and been the nominee. It's well attended. The place was packed tonight. There does seem to be a lot of enthusiasm. And I'm curious how you feel about it. Well, you know, if Biden had stayed in, I think this convention would have been like a wake. Actually,

James Carville, who is a good Catholic from New Orleans, said that it would have been like sitting Shiva for four days in Chicago. But now, you know, they're full of hope. I don't think it's irrational exuberance. I don't think they have it in the bag, which is how Republicans felt in Milwaukee. I think they understand that they have a fighting chance. And boy, for them, that is so much better than how they felt yesterday.

especially after the debate performance when they really felt that all was lost. Tim, in Milwaukee...

the term landslide was thrown around a lot that there was going to be this huge red wave coming. And to me, it seems like Democrats are trying to send a much more cautious message. The head of the forward future super PAC, which is the main super PAC aligned behind Kamala Harris's campaign had a briefing today that was like, Hey, it's not as rosy as the polls suggest. Like everybody needs to remember that this is still a tight race. Like they're sending a very different message to their people. Yeah. And the Harris campaign is running like they're behind. Yeah.

And I think that in Milwaukee, you have to remember, this was a couple of days after an assassination attempt on Trump where he rose up and said, fight, fight, fight. And they were chanting, fight, fight, fight. And then people were putting on fake bandages on their ears to look like Trump. It was... Well, he was a literal martyr, not just a figurative martyr and a victim. And so they believed that...

he had been saved to win. He had been saved to go and save America. By God. Yes. And so this is a different vibe than that. And Tam, we should note the night ended on a very visually symbolic moment. Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug, came onto stage with Joe and Jill Biden. They embraced, they were hugging. It was, he didn't physically pass a torch, but that was the visual that the convention hall was looking for. And I am,

I am a little bit of a lip reader. And Harris very clearly said as they were hugging, I love you to President Biden. And as I look down on that stage with multiple generations of Bidens and President Biden holding little baby Bo, Hunter's son, I kept thinking there are no balloons falling from the ceiling for him.

This was his only real in-person convention because four years ago there was COVID. This was his convention, but it wasn't his convention. That said, everyone held up these signs that said, we love you, Joe, or we heart you, Joe, including Nancy Pelosi, who was right in the front, who held up the sign and was chanting, we love you, Joe, even as she very clearly had a role in pushing him out.

But those two things are not in contradiction. They love him for doing the right thing, for stepping aside and giving them a chance. All right, let's leave it there. We'll be back in your feeds tomorrow night after former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, address the convention hall. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. ♪

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