CHICAGO (AP) — President Joe Biden delivered his farewell address to the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, saying, “I gave you my best,” and basked in a long round of applause that reflected the energy released by his decision to yield the stage to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Biden, 81, was welcomed as a hero after many in his party pressured him to abandon his re-election bid. A month after an unprecedented Change in the middle of the campaignThe opening night of the party convention in Chicago was designed to allow the incumbent president a dignified exit and to catapult Harris into a confrontation with Republican Donald Trump, whose comeback attack on the White House is seen by the Democrats as an existential threat.
On Monday, Biden stressed that, despite reports to the contrary, he bears no resentment toward the impending end of his term and called on the party to unite behind Harris.
“I have made many mistakes in my career, but I have done my best for you,” Biden said.
Biden spoke clearly and forcefully, relishing the chance to defend his record, advocate for his vice president and attack Trump. His speech was more reminiscent of the Biden who won in 2020 than the mumbling and sometimes incomprehensible former candidate whose debate performance brought about the downfall of his re-election campaign.
When Biden took the stage, he was visibly moved and was greeted with over four minutes of applause and shouts of “Thank you, Joe.”
“America, I love you,” he replied.
He described the choice of Harris as his running mate four years ago as “the very first decision I made when I became our nominee, and it was the best decision of my entire career.”
“She’s tough, she’s experienced and she’s got tremendous integrity, tremendous integrity,” he said. “Her story is the best American story.”
“And like many of our best presidents,” he added, alluding to his own career, “she was also vice president.”
Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff came out after his speech to hug him and his family.
“Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifelong commitment to our nation and for all that you will continue to do,” she said earlier in the evening. “We are eternally grateful.”
The President praised his greatest achievements
Biden’s speech, which was billed as the highlight of the evening, was postponed until late at night because the convention program was more than an hour behind schedule. The delay led to convention organizers having to cancel a performance by legendary musician James Taylor.
He celebrated his administration’s successes, including a massive increase in infrastructure spending and a cap on insulin prices. The spending resulted in more money going to Republican-leaning states than to Democratic ones, he said, because “the president’s job is to take care of all of America.”
The president recalled the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally, when white supremacists marched with torches through Charlottesville, Virginia, an incident he said reinforced his decision to run for president in 2020, despite his ongoing grief over the death of his son, Beau Biden.
First Lady Jill Biden alluded to her husband’s painful decision to drop out of the race in remarks minutes before Biden’s appearance, saying she “fell in love with him again just a few weeks ago when I saw him dig deep into his soul and decide not to run for re-election and to support Kamala Harris.”
Speakers on Monday sought to strengthen both Biden and Harris
A long list of high-profile speakers sought to link both Biden and Harris to what the party sees as the governing couple’s most popular achievements.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, greeted with sustained applause, paid tribute to Harris and stressed her potential to break the “highest, hardest glass ceiling” and become America’s first female president. Clinton was the Democratic nominee in 2016 but lost that election to Trump.
“Together, we have broken many cracks in the highest and hardest glass ceiling,” Clinton said, invoking a metaphor she used in her speech eight years ago when she lost the election. “On the other side of that glass ceiling, Kamala Harris takes the oath of office as the 47th President of the United States. When a barrier falls for one of us, it clears the way for all of us.”
Clinton also acknowledged Biden’s resignation, saying: “Now we are writing a new chapter in American history.”
Clinton, 76, underscored the party’s cross-generational reach. She followed 34-year-old New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Harris and made the first mention of the war in Gaza at the convention, addressing an issue that has divided the party’s base since the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent offensive.
Biden tells anti-war protesters they are “right”
Outside the arena Thousands of demonstrators came to Chicago to denounce the Biden-Harris administration’s support of the Israeli war effort.
According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, Israel’s counterattack in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians after killing more than 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage on October 7. Pro-Palestinian activists held a panel discussion They discussed the plight of Gaza earlier on Monday, a first for the DNC, according to organizers.
Some protesters from the “Abandon Biden” movement unfurled a protest sign reading “Stop arming Israel” late Monday night, minutes after Biden began his speech.
The sign was quickly snatched from the protesters and the lights in that part of Congress were turned off. Others in the room responded to the protest by chanting “We love Joe” and holding up their banners in support of the president.
Biden acknowledged the protests in his speech, saying, “The protesters in the streets are right. Many innocent people are being killed on both sides.” He reiterated his push to get Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire agreement that would include the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7.
Democrats presented a huge version of “Project 2025”
Meanwhile, Democrats tried to shift the focus to Trump, mocking his criminal convictions and claiming he was fighting only for himself and not “for the people” – the official theme of the evening.
Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow lifted an oversized copy of “Project 2025” – a blueprint for a second Trump term created by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation – onto the lectern and quoted from parts of it.
The Democrats held Access to abortion in focus for voters betting that the issue will help them win, as it has in other key elections since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. Speakers Monday included women whose health care suffered as a result of that decision, and a woman who was raped and became pregnant by her stepfather attacked Trump for trying to restrict access to abortion. The convention program included a video in which Trump praised his own role in overturning Roe v. Wade.
The convention program also paid tribute to the civil rights movement, with an appearance by Reverend Jesse Jackson, founder of the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease. There were several references to Fannie Lou Hamer, the late civil rights activist who gave a landmark speech at a Democratic convention in 1964.
Hamer was a former sharecropper and a leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, an ethnically integrated group that challenged the inclusion of an all-white Mississippi delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Hamer delivered her speech on August 22, 1964—exactly 60 years before Harris would accept the Democratic nomination, becoming the first black woman and first person of South Asian descent to run as a major party presidential nominee.
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Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Josh Boak in Chicago, Ali Swenson and Michelle L. Price in New York and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.
