Takeaways from the second night of the Democratic National Convention

CNN

By Eric Bradner and Arit John, CNN

(CNN) — Barack and Michelle Obama electrified the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, delivering back-to-back speeches that eviscerated Donald Trump and urged Americans to reject the Republican nominee once and for all.

The former first lady, in one of the most memorable speeches in convention history, called on Democrats to drop the “Goldilocks complex” and work hard to elect Vice President Kamala Harris.

“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 said.

Then, the former president — in a speech that evoked memories of his emergence into the American political consciousness and his own winning campaigns — said that the “vast majority of us do not want to live in a country that’s bitter and divided.”

“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,” Obama said.

Their speeches closed a night during which Democrats had sought to introduce Harris in more personal terms to Americans who are only now learning about the vice president, just a month after she ascended to the top of the party’s 2024 ticket.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff told the story of their relationship and why his children call the vice president “Momala.” Maryland Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks explained how Harris came to be someone she considered a friend and mentor.

It set the stage for the two closing nights of the convention: Wednesday night, when the party’s vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will take the stage, and Thursday, when Harris will close the gathering as the final sprint to Election Day begins.

Here are eight takeaways from the second night of the DNC:

‘Kids with funny names’

Twenty years after Barack Obama, then a state senator, burst onto the political scene with his 2004 DNC speech, he delivered its bookend.

“This convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible,” Obama said.

The 44th president’s remarks were filled with references to his own campaigns — including familiar calls-and-responses the “Yes we can” chants once so omnipresent at Obama rallies now returning as “Yes she can.”

It’s no wonder why: Obama remains so popular with American voters that even Trump now passes on opportunities for confrontation with the former president. He told CNN’s Kristen Holmes on Tuesday that while he has differences with Obama on trade policy, “I happen to like him. I respect him, and I respect his wife.”

Obama took swings at Trump, to be sure — trying to deflate the figure that has so dominated American politics since Obama left the stage.

“Here is a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago. There’s the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes,” Obama said.

But he also urged Democrats not to direct similar rancor at regular Americans.

“If a parent or grandparent occasionally says something that makes us cringe, we don’t automatically assume they’re bad people,” he said. “We recognize that the world is moving fast — that they need time and maybe a little encouragement to catch up. Our fellow citizens deserve the same grace we hope they’ll extend to us. That’s how we can build a true Democratic majority, one that can get things done.”

Barack Obama’s family story

The former president also put a new twist on the familiar story of his own family — comparing his grandmother, a White woman from Kansas who helped raise him, and his mother-in-law, a Black woman from the south side of Chicago who died earlier this year.

“They knew what was true. They knew what mattered,” Obama said. “Things like honesty and integrity, kindness and hard work. They weren’t impressed with braggarts or bullies. They didn’t think putting other people down lifted you up or made you strong. They didn’t spend a lot of time obsessing about what they didn’t have.”

Then, he drew the connection to Harris — pointing to her Indian mother and Jamaican father, who both immigrated to the United States.

“Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, or somewhere in between, we have all had people like that in our lives — people like Kamala’s parents, who crossed oceans because they believed in the promise of America,” he said.

‘Hope makes a comeback’

Few people have as much of a hold on the hearts and minds of the Democratic base as Michelle Obama, who was greeted with one of the loudest, longest rounds of applause as she took the stage in her hometown Tuesday.

“Hope is making a comeback,” she said, echoing the theme of her husband’s 2008 presidential run.

The former first lady spoke to the optimism that Harris has created since she became the Democratic nominee and described her as the best choice to lead the nation, based on both her experience and her character.

“My girl Kamala Harris is more than ready for this moment,” Michelle Obama said. “She is one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency, and she is one of the most dignified.”

She spoke of the middle class backgrounds and values she shared with Harris and painted a sharp contrast with Trump, noting that they would never “benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth.”

Warnings of ‘foolishness’

The key role Michelle Obama played Tuesday was to urge the audience to keep their eyes on the prize. Obama told Democrats to avoid the “foolishness” of waiting to be asked to act and made a personal appeal for everyone to “do something” between now and Election Day.

“Yes, Kamala and Tim are doing great now. We’re loving it. They pack arenas across the country. Folks are energized. We are feeling good,” she said. “But remember, there are still so many people who are desperate for a different outcome.”

She laid out the stakes, and the challenges, facing Harris as a Black woman seeking higher office in starker terms than any other convention speaker to date. Obama alluded to the years Trump spent spreading the false, racist birther conspiracy theory against her husband.

“We know folks are going to do everything they can to distort her truth,” she said of Harris. “My husband and I, sadly, know a little something about this. For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us.”

She also took a jab at Trump’s June debate claim that migrants are stealing “Black jobs.”

“Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs,” she said.

Emhoff introduces ‘Momala’

Emhoff, the second gentleman, sought to show America a personal side of his wife — telling stories about how they met and how she became “Momala” to his two children.

Emhoff, an attorney who left his law firm after Harris was elected vice president, stepped into the role he’s seeking as America’s dad — one who has a group chat with boyhood friends and a fantasy football league (team name, Nirvana, “yes, after the band,” he said) with law school buddies.

He said he’d gotten her phone number and called at 8:30 a.m. He left a rambling voice mail that he instantly regretted — and Harris saved that voicemail. “She makes me listen to it on every anniversary,” he said.

Still, he said, she called back, and the two talked and laughed for an hour. “You know that laugh. I love that laugh,” he said.

Emhoff’s up-front role for Harris was a vivid contrast with the Republican National Convention. Two of Trump’s sons spoke, but they did not delve deeply into personal stories about their father. His wife, Melania Trump, did not speak at all, and has kept her involvement in his third presidential run to a minimum.

But Emhoff’s speech wasn’t purely personal anecdotes. He also described Harris as tough.

“Here’s the thing about joyful warriors: They’re still warriors. And Kamala is as tough as it comes,” he said.

GOP speakers show up for Harris

Democrats weren’t just working to appeal to their own party. Throughout the night, the DNC featured former Republicans making the case for independents and Trump critics to vote for Harris.

One of the prime-time speaking slots went to Mayor John Giles of Mesa, Arizona, a self-declared lifelong Republican who said the Biden-Harris administration had delivered results for his conservative community.

“I have an urgent message for the majority of Americans who, like me, are in the political middle: John McCain’s Republican Party is gone, and we don’t owe a damn thing to what’s been left behind,” Giles said. “So let’s turn the page. Let’s put country first.”

Giles’ speech capped off a series of appearances Tuesday by Republicans, or people who’d left the party, rallying support for Harris.

In a short video, three former Trump voters said they believed the former president didn’t respect the Constitution and criticized his felony convictions. On stage, Kyle Sweetser – a Nikki Haley supporter who plans to vote for Harris – said that he voted for Trump three times before growing concerned about his tariff policies.

“Costs for construction workers like me were starting to soar,” Sweetser said. “I realized Trump wasn’t for me.”

Stephanie Grisham, a former Trump White House press secretary and chief of staff to former First Lady Melania Trump, described herself as a “true believer” who spent her holidays at Mar-a-Lago. But she resigned on January 6, 2021, after Trump failed to immediately move to stop his supporters from attacking the US Capitol.

Grisham used her remarks to condemn Trump’s behind closed doors, telling that audience that he mocks his supporters in private and has called them “basement dwellers.”

“He has no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth,” she said.

‘This is not a radical agenda’

Since his 2016 presidential campaign, Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders has maintained a strong following among young and progressive voters – the same voters Harris will need in November.

Sanders used his remarks Tuesday to endorse what the Biden administration has accomplished over the past three and a half years, while also laying out a list of proposals for the next Democratic administration: campaign finance reform, protections for unions, improving health care access and lowering drug costs, and improving public education.

“Let us be clear: This is not a radical agenda,” Sanders said. “But, let me tell you what a radical agenda is. And that is Trump’s Project 2025.”

For the vice president, Sanders’ remarks weren’t just about rehashing how the administration navigated the pandemic.

Harris has spent much of her fledgling campaign trying to distance herself from the progressive campaign she ran in the 2020 Democratic primary, specifically her support for “Medicare for All” and a ban on fracking.

That pivot to the center risks angering or disappointing the left, making endorsements from Sanders – and Monday night’s remarks from New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – that much more important.

‘VP Harris, Governor Walz’

Democrats interrupted the party’s convention Tuesday night to throw a party.

The roll call, a tradition of political conventions, was turned into an hourlong, prime-time mash-up led by DJ Cassidy of songs associated with each state, while representatives from the states delivered short speeches as they cast their delegates’ votes for the vice president.

Some of the song picks were by musicians who are synonymous with their home states, including Eminem (Michigan), Prince (Minnesota), Bruce Springsteen (New Jersey), Jay-Z and Alicia Keys (New York) and Petey Pablo (North Carolina).

A few were less obvious. (Did you know, for example, that Portugal. The Man is from Alaska?)

Harris’ home state of California got several songs — a rap mix of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur and Kendrick Lamar. Gov. Gavin Newsom cast the state’s votes for Harris to the tune of Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”

But Georgia stole the show. Lil Jon started the party by rapping “Turn Down for What.” Then, as the track to “Get Low” played, Lil Jon tweaked the words. “To the window, to the wall” became “VP Harris, Governor Walz.”

It was an hour of music and vibes with no actual consequence. Democrats conducted their roll call virtually two weeks ago; Harris was already officially the nominee. Tuesday night’s roll call was purely ceremonial.

“This roll call is unapologetic earnestness and unironic cringe without one ounce of shame. It’s perfect,” Amanda Litman, a Democratic strategist and writer, said on social media.

It ended with Democrats cutting from the roll call to a live video of Harris and Walz stepping onstage a 90-minute drive north, in Milwaukee, where they held a rally Tuesday night.

“I’ll see you in two days, Chicago,” Harris said.

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