US President Joe Biden gave an emotional speech early Tuesday morning as he spoke to the Democratic National Convention after being forced to relinquish the party’s nomination to his VP, Kamala Harris.
“America, I love you!” said Biden, 81, dabbing his eyes after an introduction from his daughter, Ashley Biden.
The crowd, chanting, “Thank you, Joe!”, continued to applaud the outgoing president for several minutes before he kicked off his address.
“Thank you, Kamala, too,” Biden said, noting his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement nominee.
“I’ve got five months left of my presidency and I have a lot to do. I intend to get it done,” Biden insisted — as he prepared to depart later in the evening for a vacation in California following weeks of few public events since he dropped his bid for a second term on July 21.
“It’s been the honour of my lifetime to serve as your president. And I love the job, but I love my country more,” Biden said.
“And all this talk about how I’m angry at all those people who said I should step down, it’s not true.”
Biden said that picking Harris, 59, as his running mate in 2020 was “the best decision I made in my whole career” and claimed that “democracy must be preserved” by electing her.
Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, along with Biden’s family, including first son Hunter Biden, joined him on stage when he concluded, in a scene that resembled a nomination acceptance celebration.
“Let me ask you, are you ready to vote for freedom? Are we ready to fight for democracy and for America? Let me ask you, are you ready to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz?” Biden implored the thousands of Democrats, who began walking out before he had even finished speaking.
Biden then mangled his words when discussing the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“The decision overturning Roe v. Wade, that you heard earlier tonight, the United States Supreme Court majority wrote the following: Quote, women are not without electrical, are not, not allowed, are not without electoral or political power,” he said.
The outgoing president showed few signs of the perceived cognitive decline that led to his retirement, but at one point admitted, “I’m so damn old”, and claimed, “I wrote a peace treaty for Gaza” in reference to a troubled cease-fire plan.
He said he began his political career appearing too young and ended it seeming “too old to stay as president” on a rueful note.
“Those protesters out in the street have a point, a lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides,” Biden said of anti-Israel demonstrators outside the gates, who had furiously dubbed him “Genocide Joe.”
Biden tried to share credit for his accomplishments with Harris, while also saying at one point “We both know we have more to do, but we’re moving in the right direction.”
Biden also attacked former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, calling him a “loser” and “convicted felon” and reprising his focus on the Jan. 6, 2021,
“My fellow Democrats, my fellow Americans, nearly four years ago … I raised my right hand and I swore an oath,” he said. “In front of me was a city surrounded by the National Guard, behind me a Capitol that just two weeks before that had been overrun by a violent mob.”
“It was, as I told you then, a winter of peril and possibility. We were in the grip of a once-in-the-century pandemic, historic joblessness, a call for racial justice long overdue, clear and present threats to our very democracy,” he said.
“Now it is summer, the winter has passed, and with a grateful heart, I stand before you on this August night to declare democracy has prevailed, democracy has delivered, and now democracy must be preserved.”
Biden said that still “we’re in a battle for the very soul of America” — a line he emphasized during the 2022 midterm elections.
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