▶ Watch Video: Watch: Former President Obama bashes Trump, makes case for Harris, calls for unity in.
Barack and Michelle Obama urged Democrats to unite behind Vice President Kamala Harris on the second night of the party’s convention in Chicago on Tuesday, challenging the assembled delegates and voters at home to harness the enthusiasm surrounding Harris’ candidacy to defeat Donald Trump in November.
“We do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos. We have seen that movie before, and we all know that the sequel is usually worse,” Barack Obama said in his 34-minute address. “America’s ready for a new chapter. America’s ready for a better story. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris.”
The 44th president took on Trump directly, calling him “a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down that golden escalator nine years ago.” But Obama also said Democrats cannot be complacent and must lay out a vision for the future.
“Our job is to convince people that democracy can actually deliver. And in doing that, we can’t just point to what we’ve already accomplished. We can’t just rely on the ideas of the past. We need to chart a new way forward to meet the challenges of today. And Kamala understands this,” Obama said, highlighting Democratic policies on housing, health care, the economy, immigration and more.
Michelle Obama struck a similar tone as her husband, noting that “hope is making a comeback” with Harris’ candidacy but imploring Democrats to get to work.
“It’s up to us to remember what Kamala’s mother told her: Don’t just sit around and complain — do something,” she said. “So if they lie about her, and they will, we’ve got to do something. If we see a bad poll, and we will, we’ve got to put down that phone and do something.”
Here are the highlights from the second day of the 2024 Democratic National Convention:
Barack Obama sought to persuade the nation to leave the “chaos” of Trump’s administration behind in pursuit of a “new chapter” ushered in by Harris.
Obama, whose speech at the DNC in 2004 rocketed him to fame and eventually the White House, recalled accepting the Democratic presidential nomination 16 years ago and said selecting President Biden as his running mate was one of his best decisions.
“What I came to admire most about Joe wasn’t just his smarts, his experience. It was his empathy and his decency and his hard-earned resilience, his unshakeable belief that everyone in this country deserves a fair shot,” he said.
Obama said Mr. Biden has demonstrated those values during his nearly four years in office.
“History will remember Joe Biden as an outstanding president who defended democracy at a moment of great danger,” he said. “And I am proud to call him my president, but I am even prouder to call him my friend.”
Obama sought to paint Trump as a dangerous candidate who is seeking a second term in the White House for his own personal gain, and he accused Republicans of pushing a message of fear. But he said Democrats must demonstrate to voters that the government can help them and pursue new ideas to address current challenges.
“Kamala and Tim have kept faith with America’s central story, a story that says we are all created equal, all of us endowed with certain inalienable rights, that everyone deserves a chance that even when we don’t agree with each other, we can find a way to live with each other,” he said.
Obama warned of the nation’s current cultural landscape and said politicians and algorithms created by technology companies have capitalized on divisions to teach Americans to fear one another.
“We live in a time of such confusion and rancor, with a culture that puts a premium on things that don’t last, money, fame, status, likes,” he said. “We chase the approval of strangers on our phones. We build all manners of walls and fences and then we wonder why we feel so alone.”
But Obama pivoted to a message of hope, pointing to a spirit of volunteerism and national pride that he said demonstrates that most Americans do not want to live in a polarized nation.
“We want something better,” he said. “We want to be better and the joy and the excitement that we’re seeing around this campaign tells us we’re not alone.”
Former first lady Michelle Obama, who has been mostly absent from the political spotlight since leaving the White House, told Democrats that “hope is making a comeback.”
She took the stage to huge applause.
“Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn’t it?” she said. “We’re feeling it here in this arena, but it’s spreading all across this country we love. A familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for too long. You know what I’m talking about? It’s the contagious power of hope!”
Obama has spoken at every convention since 2008, when her husband was first nominated. Eight years later, she delivered her memorable line, “When they go low, we go high.” In her 2020 speech, she said then-President Trump “is clearly in over his head” and “cannot meet this moment.”
On Tuesday, she sought to contrast Harris and Trump throughout her speech, while only mentioning the former president by name once.
“Kamala has shown her allegiance to this nation, not by spewing anger and bitterness, but by living a life of service and always pushing the doors of opportunity open to others, she understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward,” Obama said.
She touted Harris “as more than ready for this moment,” calling her “one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency.”
But she also warned Democrats about becoming complacent, urging the party to remain united and saying they still have work to do to win in November.
“No matter how good we feel tonight or tomorrow or the next day, this is still going to be an uphill battle, so we cannot be our own worst enemies. No, the minute something goes wrong, the minute a lie takes hold, we cannot start wringing our hands,” Obama said. “We cannot get a Goldilocks complex about whether everything is just right. We cannot indulge our anxieties about whether this country will elect someone like Kamala instead of doing everything we can to get someone like Kamala elected.”
She closed her speech with a call and response with the refrain “do something.”
“It’s up to us to remember what Kamala’s mother told her: Don’t just sit around and complain — do something,” she said. “So if they lie about her, and they will, we’ve got to do something. If we see a bad poll, and we will, we’ve got to put down that phone and do something.”
She continued: “So consider this to be your official ask: Michelle Obama is asking you — no, I’m telling y’all — to do something!”
Emhoff, the nation’s first second gentleman, introduced himself to Democratic delegates and the nation, praising his wife for her dedication to their family and tying it to how she would approach leading the nation if elected president.
