Welcome to a special edition of From the Politics Desk, bringing you the highlights from the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
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Biden delivers an ode to Harris in his political swan song
By Jonathan Allen and Natasha Korecki
CHICAGO — In a political swan song rendered less than a month after he abandoned his campaign for a second term, President Joe Biden on Monday praised his own presidency and urged fellow Democrats to help elect Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him in November.
“Join me in promising your whole heart to this effort — that’s where my heart will be,” Biden said on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention.
In remarks that ended well past midnight on the East Coast, he also highlighted a long list of accomplishments — from major infrastructure and climate change laws to lowering the cost of prescription drugs for seniors and combating the Covid pandemic.
Biden was greeted with a thunderous standing ovation, with chants of “Thank you, Joe” drowning out his attempts to start his speech and thousands of signs reading “We ❤️ Joe” waving when he was introduced. It was a bittersweet moment for a party that sought Monday to exalt Biden after it turned on him just a few weeks ago — and to flip the page from its past to its future. He began speaking after more than four minutes of applause.
Once he left the campaign and ensured with his endorsement that it would go to Harris, Democrats began to venerate him — a process completed Monday when thousands of delegates embraced their lion in winter with the warmth of their cheers. Relinquishing his own power to enhance the chances of defeating former President Donald Trump, many Democrats say, was the ultimate act of political altruism.
“I think it’s hard to put into words the selflessness,” Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., said Monday night. Casten said Biden gave his life to public office, reached the pinnacle and stepped aside. “We don’t get a lot of examples of that in American history.”
Read more from Jon and Natasha →
Hillary Clinton hopes Harris can pick up where she left off
By Alex Seitz-Wald
CHICAGO — Earlier in the night, Hillary Clinton took the stage in suffragette white to pass the torch to a woman she hopes will do what she couldn’t — become the first female president of the United States.
“The future is here,” Clinton said to sustained applause. “I wish my mother and Kamala’s mother could see it.”
Eight years removed from her crushing defeat in the 2016 presidential election, the former senator and secretary of state weaved herself and Harris into the long story of the women’s rights movement, from the passage of the 19th Amendment to this November’s election.
“The story of my life and the history of our country is that progress is possible. But not guaranteed,” said Clinton, who was the first woman nominated to lead a major party’s presidential ticket. “We have to fight for it. And never, ever give up.”
In the audience in the United Center, some women could be seen wiping their eyes — including Gwen Walz, the wife of Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — and giving knowing nods when Clinton joked about Trump’s making fun of her and Harris’ laughs.
When she mentioned Trump and his felony conviction, the crowd responded with chants of “lock him up“ — an ironic repurposing of the chants Trump supporters used against Clinton eight years ago. She smiled and nodded before she moved on.
Catch up on the rest of the night’s action with our live blog →
Democrats’ salute to Biden papers over a complicated place in history
By Chuck Todd
Despite the cheers, let’s not pretend this isn’t an awkward and bittersweet moment for Biden. I’ve spent my entire professional life (over 30 years now) tracking, reporting on and watching Biden find a path to the Oval Office. I saw him try and fail … a lot. It was clearly his Holy Grail. No matter how many ways his ambition for the presidency went sideways, he always wanted to come back and try again.
The reality is this: Biden is going to be a one-term president, and history judges one-term presidents quite harshly. With the possible exception of those historians who pine for the days of James Polk, who kept to a one-term pledge, every other one-term president in our republic’s history became a one-termer because of a harsh verdict from voters or party leaders.
A lot of folks besides the first family are trying to shape Biden’s place in history. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went so far as to suggest Biden might belong on Mount Rushmore. It’s hard to take her suggestion seriously, of course — it strikes me as a party leader’s trying to appease an old friend who she knows is angry over the role she played leading the charge to get him out of the race.
Tim Walz, 60, said Biden was the best president of his lifetime. How many Americans would rank Biden ahead of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama?
The point is that the Democratic Party is awash in hyperbole regarding Biden as it lays out emotional padding for a soft landing justifying his unusual exit. Whether true or not, on a human level, it’s the right thing to do. Nobody wants to see their life’s work just tossed away in history’s dustbin.
Biden is going to be a one-term president because the public lost confidence in him, period. Some people may have liked him and wanted the Biden from the Obama years but lost confidence in this version of Biden being able to do the job. Others may have lost confidence in him because they thought he was guided too much by the progressive left. Still others may have lost confidence in him simply because he didn’t successfully put Trump in the ash heap of history.
Perhaps expectations that Biden would be able to get the country to turn the page on Trump were too great — though Biden did feed those expectations himself. But it does mean the country’s expectations weren’t met.
The long-term question for Biden’s legacy is whether there’s anything he did that any Democratic president wouldn’t have done. Is there anything he accomplished that was unique to Biden?
🗞️ Tonight’s other top stories
- 💻 Hacking update: The U.S. government confirmed the Trump campaign’s claims that it was breached by Iranian hackers. Read more →
- 🩺 Check-up: Trump said in an interview with CBS News that he would publicly release his medical records. Read more →
- 🚫 Bad blood: Trump shared AI-generated images on social media of Taylor Swift and her fans supporting him. Swift endorsed Biden and harshly criticized Trump in 2020. Read more →
- 🪑 Seating chart: Walz’s Minnesota delegation is a bit more removed from the convention stage than would be expected for the VP nominee’s home state. That has to do with the fact that Minnesota has the largest bloc of “uncommitted” delegates. Read more →
- 📱 New frontiers: Harris created a bilingual WhatsApp channel targeting Latino voters, which the campaign says is the first of its kind in a presidential election. Read more →
- 🤳 Like and subscribe: More than 200 influencers will attend the convention this week with dedicated “creator credentials” that will grant them special access. Read more →
- 🗳️ Vote watch: The Georgia Election Board adopted a new rule that could give county election administrators additional options to delay certification. Read more →
That’s all from the Politics Desk for now. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at [email protected]
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