CHICAGO (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton returned to a familiar place Wednesday: the Democratic National Convention stage to denounce Donald Trump as selfish and praise Kamala Harris for focusing on the needs of Americans, injecting modern energy into his party with his trademark off-the-cuff rants.
Clinton was expected to add weight to the third night of the DNC, which culminated in the introduction of vice presidential candidate Tim Walz to a national audience.
“For me, we have a pretty clear choice: Kamala Harris for the people. And the other guy who has proven even more than the first time that he cares about me, myself and me,” Clinton said.
Democrats gathered at Chicago’s United Center hope to build on the momentum Harris has brought since she assumed the party’s presidential nomination last month, seeking to capitalize on the Democratic exuberance that followed President Joe Biden’s resignation while making it clear to their supporters that they face a bitter fight with Trump.
Clinton is the 42nd president of the United States and a veteran of his party’s conventions for decades. Barack Obama once called her the “minister of explanations.” Obama’s chances for re-election in 2012 were boosted by a Clinton campaign at the national convention that year.
Clinton is now 78 years senior – the same age as Trump – but his speech was sometimes halting, his movements slower, and he mispronounced Harris’s first name twice. His left hand often shook when he wasn’t using it to grip the lectern.
Still, he made several memorable, down-to-earth statements, including the question, “What is your opponent doing with his voice? He talks mostly about himself. So the next time you hear him, don’t count the lies, count the ‘I’s.”
It was the kind of folksy touch that Walz, the governor of Minnesota, brought to the Democratic ticket. Walz, a Midwestern teacher, football coach and father, was also the target of Republican criticism for the way he portrayed his service in the National Guard and his personal history.
The theme of the evening was “A Fight for Our Freedoms,” with the program focusing on abortion access and other rights that Democrats want to make central to their campaign against Trump. Speaker after speaker argued that his party wanted to defend freedoms while Republicans wanted to take them away.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis used a prop that has become a convention staple: an oversized book meant to represent the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a sweeping list of goals to shrink government and move it to the right if Trump wins. Polis even ripped a page out of the ceremonial book, saying he would keep it and show it to undecided voters.
The former president has distanced himself from Project 2025, but key authors include his former top advisers. His running mate, JD Vance, wrote the foreword for the Heritage Foundation CEO’s modern book.
Florida State Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the story of a woman in her state, which passed modern abortion restrictions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. One woman was forced to carry a terminally ill child to term, only to watch the newborn die just hours after birth.
Dana Nessel, Attorney General of the State of Michigan and an openly lesbian woman, said: “I have a message for Republicans and the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court: You can rip this wedding ring out of my cold, dead, gay hand.”
Oprah Winfrey, who long hosted her eminent talk show from Chicago, seized on one of the Democrats’ favorite themes of recent times, mocking Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance, who once derided “childless cat ladies” when arguing that Americans should have more children.
Winfrey said that even if the burning house belonged to a “childless cat lady,” neighbors would still assist and “try to get the cat out, too.”
“We are past the ridiculous tweets, lies and stupidity,” she said of Trump, referring to a comment he recently made to his supporters: All they have to do is vote once – for him – and never again.
“You see a registered independent who is proud to vote again and again because that’s what Americans do,” she said. “Voting is the best thing about America.”
Trump called the convention a “farce” and pointed out that he himself had been a regular topic of conversation. He also criticized his predecessor Obama for his highly critical speech at the convention on Tuesday evening, saying Obama had been “mean.”
Democrats recognized the hostages still held by Hamas following its Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people. Jon and Rachel Goldberg-Polin moved some in the arena to tears as they paid tribute to their son, Hersh, who was kidnapped in the attack.
The release of hostages is “not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue,” said Jon Goldberg-Polin, adding: “In a competition of pain, there are no winners.”
The war between Israel and Hamas has divided the democratic base. Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside the United Center and several speakers this week recognized the civilian casualties of the Israeli offensive in Gaza. According to local health authorities, more than 40,000 people have died in Gaza.
In another contrast to the Republican Party, Democrats argued they would show “real leadership” on the U.S.-Mexico border and work toward political solutions rather than simply demonizing immigrants and using the issue as a political motive for their electorate. This was part of a larger effort to defuse Trump’s efforts to make the border crackdown a central theme of his campaign.
Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar of the border city of El Paso said, “Forget what you hear on the news, that’s where I’m from,” adding, “When it comes to the border, listen to me when I say: You know nothing, Donald Trump.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi spoke about the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. He chaired a congressional committee investigating the mob that stormed the Capitol and said, “They wanted to stop the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history.”
“Thank God they failed,” Thompson said.
Many Americans had never heard of Walz until Harris picked him as her vice presidential candidate. In the early weeks of his campaign, he charmed supporters with his background, helping to balance Harris’s coastal background as a cultural representative of the Midwestern states whose voters need her this fall.
But Walz has also come under scrutiny, in part for whitewashing his past. His wife clarified this week that she did not undergo IVF, as Walz has repeatedly claimed, but had used other fertility treatments. Republicans also criticized Walz for a 2018 remark about carrying weapons in war. Although he served in the National Guard for 24 years, he was never deployed to a war zone.
Walz has been working on his convention speech for about a week and planned to exploit a teleprompter for the first time, which he practiced in preparation. He plans to talk about his childhood in Nebraska, his service in the National Guard, his work as a teacher and coach and his time in Congress before being elected governor two years ago.
His most crucial opening appearance was by a two-term president and generational leader of his party who said he attended his first convention in 1976, but then corrected himself and said it was actually 1972.
“I have no idea how many more of them I can visit,” Clinton said.
Still, he pleaded with delegates regarding the Harris-Walz nominee: “If you let them get elected and make sure they’re a breath of fresh air, you’ll be proud of it for the rest of your life.”
“Your children will be proud,” he said. “Your grandchildren will be proud.”
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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller in Chicago, Jill Colvin and Ali Swenson in New York and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.
