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The Democratic National Convention‘s first night showcased speeches from the last Democrat to lose to Donald Trump and the last one to beat him.
Hillary Clinton spoke hopefully of finally breaking the “glass ceiling” to elect a female president. Joe Biden laced into Trump and directly acknowledged the concerns of protesters against the war in Ga awho demonstrated a few blocks from the convention hall.
Here are some takeaways from the first night of the convention.
Biden begins long political exit
President Joe Biden wrapped up the convention’s opening night by beginning his long political farewell with an address that both framed his own legacy and signaled he was ready to start ceding control of the party to Vice President Kamala Harris.
He took the stage to a long, raucous ovation from delegates hoisting “We love Joe” placards and told them in turn, “I love you!” After the affectionate opening, Biden spent long stretches of his 50-minute speech hitting Trump, returning to a key theme of the reelection campaign he’s no longer running.
Biden ticked through many of his administration’s achievements, including a major public works package and climate program, and shared the credit with Harris. He said picking Harris as his running mate was the best decision he ever made and promised to be the “best volunteer” that Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have ever seen.
His closing message to those still listening as the convention stretched late into the night: “I gave my best to you for 50 years.”
A surprise Harris appearance to pay tribute to Biden
The vice president made an unscheduled appearance onstage to pay tribute to Biden ahead of his own address to the convention. She told the president, “Thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you’ll continue to do.”
On a night meant to honor the president who stepped aside to make way for Harris, the vice president added, “We are forever grateful to you.”
Gaza gets little attention inside DNC hall — except from Biden
Thousands of marchers churned through Chicago’s streets protesting U.S. support for Israel during the war in Gaza. But inside the convention hall, the combustible issue went largely unmentioned until Biden got to the microphone.
Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez got cheers when she praised Harris for working “tirelessly to get a cease-fire in Gaza and get the hostages home.” Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia made a brief allusion to the conflict.
A handful of delegates who ran on an “uncommitted” ticket protesting Biden’s position on the war unfurled a banner during his speech that read “Stop Arming Israel.” But it was blocked by supporters waving Biden signs before it was wrestled away and the lights over that section of the audience were shut off.
Biden himself addressed the issue head-on, saying he’d keep working to “end the war in Gaza and bring peace and security to the Middle East.”
“Those protesters out in the streets have a point,” Biden said. “A lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides.”
The crowd cheered, and for a moment the war didn’t seem like it was dividing the party at all.
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Clinton revives talk of breaking that ‘glass ceiling’
Clinton was greeted with wild and sustained applause that lasted for more than two minutes before she quieted the crowd. She delivered a fiery speech hoping that Harris could do what she could not –- become the first woman president by beating Trump.
Clinton evoked her 2016 concession speech by referencing all the “cracks in the glass ceiling” that she and her voters had achieved. And she painted a vision of Harris “on the other side of that glass ceiling” taking the oath of office as president.
She closed her speech with a striking desire for someone who’s stood at the pinnacle of American politics and power: “I want my grandchildren and their grandchildren to know I was here at this moment. That we were here and that we were with Kamala Harris every step of the way.”
Clinton dipped into traditional political attacks in her speech, including mocking Trump’s criminal record. That led to chants of “lock him up” — mirroring the ones that Trump’s supporters directed at Clinton in 2016.
Tracing a line from Jesse Jackson to Kamala Harris
An early theme of the evening was celebrating the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a longtime civil rights leader in Chicago and former presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988. Many Democrats credit him with blazing a trail that helped Barack Obama win the White House in 2008 and Kamala Harris become the first woman of color nominated for the presidency.
Jackson was saluted from the stage by several speakers, including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and California Rep. Maxine Waters. There was a video montage of Jackson’s career and legacy that played before the 82-year-old Jackson himself came to the stage in a wheelchair, thrusting his arms skyward and grinning. Jackson has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
During the 1984 Democratic convention in San Francisco, Jackson gave a speech declaring that America is “like a quilt: Many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread.” The address became known as the “Rainbow Coalition” speech, and Jackson used momentum from it to seek the Democratic nomination again in 1988.
Harris has called Jackson “one of America’s greatest patriots.”
Remember COVID? Democrats don’t want voters — or Trump — to forget
Democrats opted to shine the convention spotlight on the harrowing subject of the coronavirus pandemic.
It was a reflection of Democratic frustration at how Trump has portrayed his tenure in office as a golden age for the country, even though hundreds of thousands of Americans died of COVID-19 during the last year of his term.
There are plenty of risks for Democrats in hammering the pandemic. Even more people died of the virus during Biden’s presidency than during Trump’s, voters have shown an eagerness to move on and some preventative measures championed by Democrats — like school closures and masking — are not popular in retrospect.
Still, the lineup of early speakers focused on Trump’s performance during the pandemic. Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan recalled how her brother was the second person in Tennessee to die of the disease and how she couldn’t visit him or hold a memorial service. Rep. Lauren Underwood of Illinois, a nurse, said of Trump: “He took the COVID crisis and turned it into a catastrophe. We can never ever let him be our president again.”
Rep. Robert Garcia, whose mother and stepfather died of the disease in 2020, recalled Trump’s missteps and concluded with one of the slogans of Harris’ young campaign: “We are not going back.”
Democrats one-up Republicans on labor
Trump’s convention last month featured a rare appearance from a union leader at such a GOP event: Teamsters President Sean O’Brien. That’s reflective of how Trump’s populism has cut into Democrats’ advantage with union households.
In that speech, O’Brien did not endorse Trump. However he criticized both major political parties for not doing enough to help working people.
Democrats didn’t invite O’Brien to their convention, but they countered with a half-dozen other union leaders onstage Monday. And then Shawn Fain, head of the United Auto Workers, led a blistering chant of “Trump’s a scab!” while wearing a red T-shirt emblazoned with those words.
Fain noted that Biden visited a UAW picket line last year and, when autoworkers struck in 2019, Harris, not Trump, walked the picket lines. “Donald Trump is all talk and Kamala Harris walks the walk,” Fain said.
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It was not the speech Joe Biden wanted to give. At least, not this year, under these circumstances.
But if anyone knows how quickly fortunes can change, it’s this president – whose personal and professional life has been scarred by tragedy and adversity.
In his speech to the packed arena, Biden offered a full-throated defense of his presidency – touching on many of the themes that he campaigned on in 2020 and again this year, before abandoning his bid a few weeks after a catastrophic debate performance in late June.
He also sang the praises of the woman he hopes will succeed him in the White House.
Unlike his Oval Office address four weeks ago, Biden did not speak directly of passing the torch to a new generation. Instead, the message was delivered in a post-speech embrace between the president and his vice president.
Now the president is heading to California for a holiday. This is Harris’s convention from here on out.
President Biden went through his White House highlights at the Democratic convention, trying to make the case for the lasting impact of his time in office.
Many of his comments were familiar to those who have listened to past Biden remarks. He talked about more than 16 million jobs added under his watch, the investments in computer chip manufacturing, the bipartisan infrastructure law and the greater access to health care resources. Biden noted that investments made in new computer chip factories would enable workers to make six-figure salaries without needing a college degree.
His goal had been to reframe people’s perspectives of his presidency, but those achievements that were supposed to anchor his reelection campaign never fully resonated with voters.
"Dad always told me that I was no better than anybody else, and nobody was better than me. He taught me that everyone deserves a fair shot and that we shouldn't leave anyone behind. That's what you learn from a fighter who has been underestimated his entire life," she said.
"When I look at Dad, I see grace, strength, and humility," she added. "I see one of the most consequential leaders ever in history."
The youngest Biden also spoke about her late brother Beau, who died in 2015, adding that her father was able to keep serving in government despite reeling from a loss.
"After Beau passed, I got this tattoo on my wrist. It says, 'courage, dear heart' — a reminder to myself to keep going, to get back up like my dad has always done," she said. "He has taught me that a courageous heart is a miraculous thing. A courageous heart can heal a family. A courageous heart can heal a nation and maybe even the world."
When the president took the stage, he hugged his daughter and put dabbed his eyes with a tissue. After minutes of applause, Biden exclaimed, "That was my daughter!"
"God loves you," he added. "You're incredible."
Dozens of protesters broke through a security fence near the site of the Democratic National Convention on its opening day Monday as thousands took to the streets to voice their opposition to the war in Gaza.
Families with babies in strollers, students, elected leaders, and others holding signs and flags joined the march to the United Center, where the convention is being held, to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. As the larger group marched peacefully, a few dozen who broke away tore down pieces of the security fence.
Several protesters who had managed to get through the fence were detained and handcuffed by the police. Officers put on gas masks as some protesters tried to bring down a second fence set up in front of police. Authorities said the inner security perimeter surrounding the convention site was not breached and there was no threat to those attending the convention.
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said some of the protesters who took down the fence threw water bottles and other items at police. Police de-escalated the situation without using their batons or chemicals, he said.
“When you have people infiltrate a crowd and they want to commit acts of violence, vandalism we are going to stop them,” said Snelling, who walked in a group of officers ahead of the protesters Monday. “We are not going to tolerate anyone who is going to vandalize things in our city.”
Members of the crowd chanted “End the occupation now” and then “The whole world is watching!” just as anti-Vietnam War protesters did during the infamous 1968 convention in Chicago when police clashed with protesters on live television. Families gathered on their porches and outside their doors as protesters marched by. Some children wore keffiyeh, blew bubbles, or held “free fist bumps” signs.
The march happened just as President Joe Biden, who has been the target of intense criticism from pro-Palestinian groups, including the marchers, was doing a walk-through of the largely empty United Center. Biden was scheduled to address the party in the evening.
“Biden, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide,” the marchers chanted amid the beating of drums. They also referred to him as “Genocide Joe” and lodged similar chants at Vice President Kamala Harris.
Protesters said their plans have not changed since Biden left the race and the party quickly rallied behind Harris, who will formally accept the Democratic nomination this week. Activists said they were ready to amplify their progressive message before the nation’s top Democratic leaders.
“People are dying,” said Cameron Benrud, a 25-year-old high school special education teacher from Minneapolis. He drove five hours to attend the rally at Union Park to call on Democratic officials to halt funding to Israel.
“I’m from little old Minnesota, and you feel kind of powerless... You gotta do something,” he said.
Mayor Brandon Johnson said authorities were well prepared. “The city of Chicago is really good at things like this,” he told a news conference. “We are ready.”
Organizers had hoped at least 20,000 people would take part in Monday’s rally and march, but it appeared that only a few thousand were present, though city officials declined to give a crowd estimate.
“We’re proud of the turnout, especially considering the degree of the repression from the city,” said organizer Faayani Aboma Mijana.
The Chicago area has one of the largest Palestinian communities in the nation, and buses were bringing activists from all over the country.
Taylor Cook, an organizer with the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, traveled from Atlanta for the march. Cook said the group was pushing all Democrats to call for an end to aid to Israel, with a particular focus on Harris.
“We’re saying to Kamala, that she has been complicit in this. People think it’s just Joe Biden, but she is vice president,” Cook said. “So we’re saying, you need to stop if you want our vote.”
Medea Benjamin, who traveled to Chicago from Washington, D.C., with a women-led group of protesters calling for peace, said she was shocked that the Biden administration recently approved an additional $20 billion in weapons sales to Israel.
“There’s an incredible discrepancy in what people are calling for in this country and what the administration is doing,” she said ahead of the rally in Union Park. “We’re so disgusted by this.”
Pro-Palestinian supporters descended on the park, west of the Loop business district, for the rally.
Before the march, independent presidential candidate Cornel West addressed the crowd, which welcomed him with cheers.
“This is not about some Machiavellian politics or some utilitarian calculation about an election,” he yelled into a microphone. “This is about morality. This is about spirituality.”
Around 40 pro-Israel supporters walked around the park during the rally. Remaining mostly silent while waving Israeli flags, they were accompanied by about 20 police officers on bicycles. Although tensions flared at times, there were no physical altercations.
Josh Weiner, co-founder of Chicago Jewish Alliance who walked with the pro-Israel group, said their intent was to “make our presence felt.” He said the group applied for permits that were not approved by the city.
“The pro-Palestine protesters have gotten multiple permits, including a march, which seems to be a little bit weighted on one side,” Weiner said.
Coalition activists and the city have been at odds over the location of the protests and other logistics. A judge sided with the city over an approximately 1-mile (1.6-kilometer) march route, which organizers argued was not big enough for the expected crowds.
Not a single speaker or spectator showed up to a speakers’ stage offered by city officials near the United Center. Eight groups with progressive agendas had signed up for 45-minute speaking slots on Monday. On other days, some conservative groups, including the Illinois Policy Institute think tank, have plans to speak.
Roughly 100 demonstrators with the Philadelphia-based Poor People’s Army, which advocates for economic justice, set up in Humboldt Park on the city’s West Side Monday afternoon before marching more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) to the United Center. Many held Palestinian flags and chanted “money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation.”
“They have the power to take those trillions of dollars we put into war and put them into things that actually matter to the poor,” organizer Tara Colon said.
The group said they planned to deliver a “citizens arrest warrant” to the Democratic Party for “crimes against humanity.” Among the marchers was Jill Stein, a perennial presidential candidate for the Green Party.
The Democratic Party has been riven for months by the war in Gaza, giving rise to a protest movement that threatened President Joe Biden’s electoral coalition.
But with Biden gone from the race and Vice President Kamala Harris now leading the party, there were some indicators at the Democratic National Convention on Monday that Harris is taking more assertive steps to ease that tension.
In what organizers called a first, party activists were given space at the convention to hold a forum to discuss the plight of people in Gaza, who have been under Israeli bombardment since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and its taking of hostages, as well as to share deeply personal — and often heartrending stories — about family members lost in the conflict.
Though their core demands — a cease-fire and withholding U.S. support for Israel’s prosecution of the war — remain unmet, the decision to allow activists to hold a forum amounted to the offering of an olive branch by Harris. And it’s one that many doubted Biden would have extended if he were still the nominee.
James Zogby, a panelist and the founder of the Arab American Institute, acknowledged there was still discontent over the Democratic Party’s handling of the war in Gaza. But he said the forum was nonetheless a first.
“It is not the prize. The prize is a policy change,” Zogby said. “But what is historic here is we are having an officially sanctioned panel to talk about it.”
Over an hour, panelists shared horrifying stories of lives shattered, children maimed and families erased.
Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, an American doctor who has treated patients in Gaza during the war, relayed the story of a young boy whose family was killed and who told her he no longer wanted to live because everybody he loved “is now in heaven.”
The forum was the product of secret negotiations between Harris’ campaign and members of the so-called “Uncommitted” movement — a group that encouraged Democratic voters to deny Biden their support and vote “uncommitted” during primary contests earlier this year to send a message.
Top Democrats had spent weeks meeting with “uncommitted” voters and their allies — including a previously unreported sit-down between Harris and the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan — to respond to criticism in key swing states like Michigan, which has a significant Arab American population.
Layla Elabed, a Palestinian American from Dearborn, who is a founder of the “uncommitted” movement and sister of U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, said Harris’ candidacy offered a glimmer of hope and called the panel discussion a “small victory.”
“Biden was a liability to the Democratic Party because of his unpopular and immoral (Gaza) policy. With Vice President Harris at the top of the ticket, the window of opportunity to move the Democratic Party is slightly better,” said Elabed.
“On the other hand, President Biden” will still be in office until January, Elabed said, and “we can’t wait for a transfer of power ... before we have a policy shift.”
Elabed, who met with Harris, said she felt the vice president’s “empathy and compassion was genuine and authentic,” but added that’s not enough.
“We need more than sympathy and empathy” because “Palestinian children can’t eat words,” Elabed said.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain called Kamala Harris a “fighter” for the working class and denounced Donald Trump as a “scab,” a term that applies to workers who cross picket lines and defy union actions.
Fain’s remarks led to chants of “Trump’s a scab” by the crowd at the Democratic convention.
“It’s getting hot in here, folks,” Fain said, referencing a song by musician Nelly, before removing his suit jacket to show a T-shirt that read, “Trump is a scab. Vote Harris.”
The backing of the UAW could be crucial for Democrats seeking to erode Trump’s superior margins among white voters without college degrees who identify as blue-collar.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivered the first mention of the war in Gaza from the DNC stage.
“And she is working tirelessly to secure a cease-fire in Gaza and bringing the hostages home,” Ocasio-Cortez said to cheers in the crowd.
Ocasio-Cortez has been one of the most critical voices in Congress of the Biden administration’s policy on Israel-Palestine and has called for greater restrictions on military aid to Israel. But she and other progressives have also been in dialogue with the administration on its policy, which has caused her to face pushback from some on the hard left. Hillary Clinton had a slam on Donald Trump that prompted the crowd at the Democratic convention to chant, “Lock him up,” a sly reference to the chorus of “Lock her up” that was repeated at Trump rallies about Clinton back in 2016.
Clinton smiled at the irony that her remarks had prodded.
“Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial,” she said. “When he woke up, he’d made his own kind of history: the first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions.”Former Secretary of State Clinton saluted Harris for possibly breaking the “highest, hardest glass ceiling” to become America’s first woman president.
Clinton was the Democratic nominee in 2016, but she lost that election to Trump. The former New York senator said it was “the honor of my life” to be the party’s nominee.
“Together, we’ve put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling,” Clinton said. “On the other side of that glass ceiling is Kamala Harris raising her hand and taking the oath of office as our 47th president of the United States. Folks, my friends, when a barrier falls for one of us, it clears the way for all of us.”
The focus on the nature of Harris’ historic candidacy could be key for turning out more women in key states which Democrats need if they hope to win in November.
Democrats made an emotional appeal to voters on the need for abortion rights, having people talk about their first-hand experiences with complicated pregnancies.
Amanda and Josh Zurawski of Texas spoke about a tortured pregnancy in which there was a choice between the life of their daughter, Willow, and that of the mother. Kaitlyn Joshua of Louisiana said her state’s abortion restrictions meant she could not get the emergency room care she needed when she ultimately miscarried.
And in a moment that left the convention room quiet, Hadley Duvall of Kentucky spoke openly about the sexual abuse that left her pregnant at 12, when she said she learned she had options other than keeping the pregnancy.
Former President Trump calls the abortion bans “a beautiful thing,” Duvall said. “What is so beautiful about a child having to carry her parent’s child?”
The convention gave Duvall a standing ovation for having survived the ordeal. President Joe Biden came out to give his convention speech — only to be greeted with roughly five minutes worth of cheers, applause, and chants of “Thank You, Joe.”
“Thank you,” the president said repeatedly, as he took in the moment. The crowd in Chicago’s United Center held up signs with heart signs that said they loved him.
“I love you all,” Biden said to a party that weeks earlier had worried about his ability to beat Donald Trump, causing the tough choice by him to forgo the nomination for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The founder of the main outside spending group backing Kamala Harris' presidential bid says their own opinion polling is less "rosy" than public polls suggest and warned that Democrats face much closer races in key states.
