Historic: Kamala Harris Accepts Vice Presidential Nomination
Historic: Kamala Harris Accepts Vice Presidential Nomination
Senator Kamala Harris claps with viewers watching virtually after speaking during the Democratic National Convention at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware. Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption
Senator Kamala Harris claps with viewers watching virtually after speaking during the Democratic National Convention at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware.
Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesKamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama all made speeches on the third night of the Democratic National Convention—a more typical political lineup after the cross-party dockets of previous nights.
Harris, for her part, accepted her historic vice presidential nomination with a nod to her mother:
I keep thinking about that 25-year-old Indian woman—all of five feet tall—who gave birth to me at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California. On that day, she probably could have never imagined that I would be standing before you now speaking these words: I accept your nomination for Vice President of the United States of America.
(You can hear us talk about it in the podcast at the top of this page.)
Curious what else happened? Here's what stood out:
- Harris used much of her speech to describe a moment of national crisis, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the economic collapse and the country's racial reckoning.
- Barack Obama, the former president, also spoke about his successor. Shortly before he left office, he said he didn't plan to criticize Trump unless he felt it was critical to "core questions about our values and ideals."
- That reticence now appears to be behind him. In his speech, Obama said he wanted to "talk as plainly as I can about the stakes in this election" and described another Trump term as an existential threat to our democracy.
- President Trump, apparently watching the proceedings from the White House, tweeted his response.
- Hillary Clinton urged folks to vote in large numbers and hand Joe Biden a clear mandate in order to overcome President Trump's conspiracies about the nation's election systems: "Joe and Kamala can win by three million votes and still lose, take it from me."
- There were also three musical performances: from Billie Eilish, Jennifer Hudson, and Royce.
Want more? We summed it all up here. And we'll have fresh analysis in our newsletter.
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