In boosting Kamala Harris at DNC, Obamas go high and low
(CHICAGO) — Barack and Michelle Obama used their star power to lift up Vice President Kamala Harris — and eviscerate her opponent.
Representing Democrats’ modern version of political royalty, the former president and former first lady brought a raucous Chicago crowd to its feet with their distinctively soaring rhetoric. But compared to past speeches, these were different.
“When they go low, we go high,” Michelle Obama famously said during her 2016 Democratic National Convention speech.
On Tuesday, they did both.
Both praised Harris Tuesday as someone uniquely capable of connecting with the American people and deserving of a groundswell of support, issuing calls to action for Democrats to get out to the polls this November.
“Kamala Harris won’t be focused on her problems, she’ll be focused on yours. As president, she won’t just cater to her own supporters, punish those who refuse to kiss the ring or bend the knee. She’ll work on behalf of every American. That’s who Kamala is,” Barack Obama said.
“We cannot afford for anyone to sit on their hands and wait to be called upon. Don’t complain if no one from the campaign has specifically reached out to ask for your support. There is simply no time for that kind of foolishness. You know what we need to do. So, consider this to be your official ask: Michelle Obama is asking you, no I’m telling y’all, to do something,” Michelle Obama said to cheers in her speech introducing her husband.
Beyond promoting Harris, they also touted a vision of a country united, where citizens give each other the benefit of the doubt and can even learn from each other.
“Democracy isn’t just a bunch of abstract principles and dusty laws in some books somewhere. It’s the values we live by. It’s the way we treat each other, including those who don’t look like us or pray like us or see the world exactly like we do,” Barack Obama said. “To make progress on the things we care about, the things that really affect people’s lives, we need to remember that we’ve all got our blind spots and contradictions and prejudices.”
They also held nothing back in going after former President Donald Trump.
Both criticized Trump in sweeping terms, with Michelle Obama calling his style of politics “small,” and questioning ” Why would we accept this from anyone seeking our highest office?” and Barack Obama saying that Americans “do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos.”
But they also went after Trump in specific ways that were both cutting and, at times, below the belt.
“Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs?'” Michelle Obama said in likely the most memorable line of the night, referencing Trump’s claims that immigrants are taking jobs away from Black citizens.
And Obama knocked Trump for his “weird obsession with crowd sizes,” measuring out his hands in a way that some on social media interpreted as a reference to genitalia size.
Each time, the crowd roared.
Democrats hailed the speech, arguing it’s just what the doctor ordered.
The speeches were “great bookends,” said Pete Giangreco, a Democratic strategist who worked on Obama’s campaigns. “Instead of making Trump big and ominous, they made him small and petty and his gripes old and tired.”
“This was just a grand slam,” added veteran Democratic strategist David Brand. “I just think that they prosecuted the case against the convicted felon so marvelously and showed that America needs to get back to normalcy and away from the chaos that is Trumpism.”
The tone of the speeches, both optimistic and critical, inspiring and combative, underscored precisely where the Democratic Party finds itself this year.
The party is jubilant over Harris’ rise to the top of its ticket, particularly after President Joe Biden’s disastrous June debate left Democrats feeling hopeless about their electoral chances in November. The United Center this week, like the party base, has been electrified.
“I am feeling fired up. I am feeling ready to go,” Barack Obama said, echoing an old campaign slogan. “I am feeling hope because this convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible. Because we have a chance to elect someone who has spent her entire life trying to give people the same chances America gave her.”
But lingering fears of a Trump comeback loom over the euphoria, with attendees repeatedly bringing up the 2016 election cycle, when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, another historic female candidate who Democrats were confident would win.
“People saw what happens when voters are complacent. Complacency handed us Donald Trump,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, D, told ABC News Tuesday.
With that fear, Democrats are leaving nothing to chance, unwilling to dull their rhetorical knives’ edges in the face of what they describe as nothing short of a risk to democracy in the form of Trump’s comeback bid.
“We’re talking about people who beat police officers with sticks and the American flag on Jan. 6 trying to steal a free and fair election. I’m sorry, I totally reject that,” Brand said when asked about if the Obamas’ rhetoric violated the rule of going high and not low.. “I don’t have patience for that argument about their feelings.”
(CHICAGO) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who was the first Muslim elected to Congress, hinted in an interview with ABC News that he might directly address protestors criticizing the Biden administration on the Israel-Hamas war and the situation in Gaza when he speaks at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night.
Ellison joined a panel about Palestinian human rights on Monday at the convention as the party faces continued protests and dissent — particularly from Muslim and Arab American communities — over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. The panel was not part of the main night session, but was sanctioned by the DNC.
When asked Wednesday about his message towards those protesting, Ellison told ABC News in a brief interview that he sees the Democratic Party as open to debate to solve pressing issues.
“One difference between us and the Republicans is that if you got a point of view, you can express it. We’re not afraid of a debate and we’re trying to solve the most pressing issues facing the United States and the world,” Ellison said, bringing up both the more than 1,200 Israelis killed during Hamas’ surprise terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and the Palestinians killed in Gaza during the war, as well as those displaced and food insecurity in Gaza. The death toll in Gaza surpassed 40,000 last week, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
When ABC News asked if he plans on referencing that in his speech or addressing the protesters directly, he said, “There’s a good chance of it. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Asked if he’s aware of any discussions of having a Palestinian or Palestinian Americans address the DNC, Ellison said, “I do know that it has been discussed. I don’t know where we’ve landed on that. But I mean, like, why not — why not include all American voices? I mean, we all live here. We all love the country. Let’s all, let’s hear from everybody.”
As to what Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz should do to reach those protesting, Ellison said that both have said they support working towards a cease-fire in Gaza and that the Biden administration is actively figuring out the terms of one.
“I don’t know how much disagreement there is. I think we all want to see the violence stop and civilians have safety and security, and to see Gaza restored,” he said. “I think there’s general agreement on that.”
Ellison also praised Walz, the governor of his state, as “a good, decent, genuine human being.”
“If there’s one word that I think captures him, I think it’s ‘relatable.’”
Ellison represented Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District from 2007 until 2019 and was a co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus. He was elected attorney general in 2018, the first African American elected to statewide office in Minnesota.
(PHILIDELPHIA) — The presidential debate set to be held by ABC News will take place at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, the network announced on Friday.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump had previously committed to attending.
The Sept. 10 debate will be moderated by “World News Tonight” anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News Live “Prime” anchor Linsey Davis.
It will be produced in conjunction with ABC station WPVI-TV/6abc, and will air live at 9 p.m. ET on the network and on the ABC News Live 24/7 streaming network, Disney+, and Hulu.
ABC News will also air a pre-debate special, “Race for the White House,” at 8 p.m. ET, anchored by chief global affairs correspondent and “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz, chief Washington correspondent and “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce and senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott.
As previously announced by ABC News, to formally qualify, presidential candidates will need to hit various qualification requirements, including in polling thresholds and in appearing on enough state ballots to theoretically be able to get a majority (270) of electoral votes in the presidential election.
The National Constitution Center, which hosts exhibits and events about the U.S. Constitution and about civic engagement, is right by Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were both signed.
ABC News hosted town halls at the National Constitution Center with then-candidate President Joe Biden and then-incumbent President Donald Trump in 2020.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. JD Vance and Gov. Tim Walz both claim to be champions of gun rights for law-abiding citizens and have touted personal stories of growing up in households where firearms were commonplace, but the vice presidential candidates have vastly different views on how to curb America’s gun violence epidemic.
As the Democratic National Convention begins Monday in Chicago, Vice President Kamala Harris has made gun control a top priority.
“We who believe that every person should have the freedom to live safe from the terror of gun violence, will finally pass red flag laws, universal background checks and an assault weapons ban,” Harris said at her first presidential campaign rally in Milwaukee.
Harris was appointed in September 2023 by President Joe Biden to oversee the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
Meanwhile, there was little acknowledgment of the nation’s gun violence scourge at the Republican National Convention last month, despite GOP presidential nominee former President Donald Trump being the victim of a would-be assassin wielding an AR-15-style rifle.
In the 2024 GOP convention platform, there was no mention of firearm violence or gun control, while in 2020, the party’s platform contained three paragraphs supporting reciprocity legislation allowing Americans to carry firearms in all 50 states regardless of which state they received a carry permit, and opposing an assault weapons ban, “frivolous” lawsuits against gun manufacturers and “any effort to deprive individuals of their right to keep and bear arms without due process of law.”
While Harris and Trump’s polarizing stances on gun control are well documented, the positions of their running mates are emerging for the first time on a national level.
Vance, the 40-year-old Ohio U.S. senator and Marine veteran, and Walz, the 60-year-old Minnesota governor and Army National Guard veteran, have portrayed themselves as strong Second Amendment advocates. But they have voiced starkly different views on gun control.
Vance’s stand on gun control
“I’m a big pro-Second Amendment guy and I know a lot of people who will strongly, stridently defend the Second Amendment. None of them think convicted felons, who have been afforded their due process rights should be able to buy firearms and then kill people,” Vance said during a June 2022 U.S. Senate election debate against his Democratic opponent, former Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan.
In a 2022 federal candidate survey for the Ohio Gun Owners and the American Firearms Association, Vance said he opposes “red flag” gun laws, legislation to ban certain semiautomatic rifles, including AR-15s; supports abolishing the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and establishing a national stand-your-ground law giving individuals the right to use reasonable force, including deadly force, to protect themselves.
Vance also checked yes on voting to repeal the 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act and supported a national Second Amendment Preservation Act that prohibits the use of federal funds to enforce gun control laws, regulations and executive orders.
“We need to fix the system we have that has problems as opposed to layering on a bunch of new regulations and laws on top of it,” Vance said during the debate against Ryan. “The thing that I don’t like is when you create a new background check system with new sets of regulations that go after law-abiding citizens.”
The National Rifle Association — which according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit research and government transparency group that tracks money in politics and its effect on elections and policy — contributed nearly $500,000 to Vance’s senate campaign. The NRA has also endorsed the Trump-Vance ticket.
“Now, more than ever, freedom and liberty need courageous and virtuous defenders,” Doug Hamlin, executive vice president and CEO of the NRA, said in a statement in July. “President Trump and Senator Vance have the guts and the grit to stand steadfast for the Second Amendment.”
In June 2024, Vance called efforts by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to ban bump stocks, a device that enables semiautomatic rifles to fire almost like machine guns, a “huge distraction.”
The gunman who committed the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival concert in Las Vegas that killed 58 people and left more than 800 injured, used guns fitted with bump stocks, according to investigators.
“I think that we have to ask ourselves: ‘What is the real gun violence problem in this country?’ and are we legislating in a way that solves fake problems? Or solves real problems?” Vance told reporters in June as his name was then being floated as Trump’s running mate. “And my very strong suspicion is that the Schumer legislation is aimed at a PR problem, not something that’s going to meaningfully reduce gun violence in this country.”
While he wasn’t a member of the U.S. Senate at the time, Vance said he would have voted against the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major gun safety law enacted in 30 years that Biden signed in June 2022, about a month after a teenage gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
The law enhances background checks for gun buyers under 21, closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole” to prevent people convicted of domestic abuse from purchasing guns, and allocates $750 million to help states implement “red flag laws” to remove firearms from people deemed to be dangerous to themselves and others.
“First of all, from what I’ve seen of this bill, I would not support it. I think red flag laws, in particular, they certainly are a slippery slope. They also don’t solve the problem of gun violence,” Vance said in a 2022 interview with the Breitbart News Daily podcast.
During his RNC acceptance speech, Vance — author of the bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” — told the story of how after the death of his beloved grandmother, whom he called Mamaw, his family found 19 loaded guns in her house.
“The thing is, they were stashed all over her house — under her bed, in her closet, in the silverware drawer, and we wondered what was going on,” Vance said. “It occurred to us that toward the end of her life, Mamaw couldn’t get around so well, so she was sure that no matter where she was, she was within arm’s length of whatever she needed to protect her family. That’s who we fight for. That’s the American spirit.”
Walz’s stand on gun control
Walz, a former high school geography teacher and football coach, has proudly proclaimed being an avid hunter who once received an A-rating and an endorsement from the National Rifle Association while a five-term Congressman from rural Minnesota. As a member of Congress, Walz sponsored the Sportsman’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act, which expanded access to public lands for hunting and supported legislation to reform the ATF.
“I’m proud to stand with the NRA to protect our Second Amendment rights, and I’m truly grateful for their endorsement,” Walz said in a 2010 statement.
In 2016, Guns & Ammo magazine praised Walz’s record on protecting gun rights and put him on a list of top 20 politicians for gun owners.
“While most congressional Democrats have jumped on the gun control train with both feet, Tim Walz and a few others have stuck to their guns,” Guns & Ammo wrote.
But Walz said his NRA rating fell to an F-rating when his stance on gun control dramatically changed following the Feb. 14, 2018, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 15 students and two adults, including a football coach, dead.
“My job today is to be dad to a 17-year-old daughter,” Walz said during a 2018 community meeting in Minnesota while running for governor in the aftermath of the Parkland massacre. “Hope woke up as many of you did five weeks ago and said, ‘Dad, you’re the only person I know who’s in elected office. You need to stop what’s happening with this.'”
In an editorial he wrote that was published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in February 2018 — which was titled “Tim Walz: Please understand my full record on guns” — Walz explained how the Parkland shooting forced him to reevaluate his positions on gun control.
“We all put ourselves in the place of a loved one or someone who faced that terror. It hits me as the dad of a fifth-grader and a high-school student. It hits me as a former high school geography teacher and football coach, when I think about the geography teacher and the coach at that school who gave their lives so that their students could keep theirs.”
Walz said he donated the $18,000 campaign contribution he received in his 2018 gubernatorial run from the NRA, to a charity that helps families of military personnel killed or injured while serving and came out in favor of an assault weapons ban.
In a Star Tribune editorial, he also said that during his time in Congress, he supported “common-sense” gun-control reform laws, repeatedly voted in favor of universal background checks and preventing people on no-fly lists from purchasing firearms. He also said he supported legislation to fund gun violence research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was a co-sponsor of a bill to ban bump stocks and voted against concealed-carry reciprocity.
Walz also confronted the NRA, writing in the editorial that the organization is “the biggest single obstacle to passing the most basic measures to prevent gun violence in America — including common-sense solutions that the majority of NRA members support.”
As governor, Walz signed in May 2023 a historic suite of gun-safety measures that created red flag laws, extended the waiting period for gun transfers between parties from 7 to 10 days and expanded background checks to include private purchases between individuals, including those made at gun shows. The laws also require anyone buying a pistol or “semiautomatic military-style assault weapons” to apply for a permit to purchase or carry such guns from their local police agency or sheriff’s department.
“As a veteran, gun-owner, hunter, and dad, I know basic gun safety isn’t a threat to the Second Amendment — it’s about keeping our kids safe,” Walz said during a ceremony to sign the gun legislation. “There’s no place for weapons of war in our schools, churches, banks, or anywhere else people are just trying to live their lives. Today is about taking meaningful action to create a safer future for our kids, and I am proud to sign this commonsense, life-saving legislation into law.”
‘The number one killer of our generation’
Timberlyn Mazeikis, who endured a Feb. 13, 2023, mass shooting at Michigan State University that left three of her classmates dead and five others injured, told ABC News that for her and many other Gen Z members the choice in this election “is simple.”
“Gun violence is the leading cause of death in our generation, and for a lot of us, we can no longer sit by and continue to watch this happen and just wait for the next massacre to occur. Because of that, we are showing up to vote,” said 21-year-old Mazeikis, now a senior at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.
Mazeikis, who will be voting in her first presidential election in November, said the MSU mass shooting “took a toll on me” as she recounted being barricaded in the school gym for hours, terrified that the shooter would burst through the doors at any minute.
After the shooting, she became a volunteer leader for Students Demand Action, an organization that fights for gun control legislation.
“I felt that I could no longer sit back and watch as further communities were destroyed by gun violence,” Mazeikis said. “And that experience of being on campus and the fear that I felt that day and losing my classmates and my sense of security has really worked as a catalyst to push me in this movement and to realize that we can no longer live this way.”
She said that while she views Trump and Vance as a “gun extremist dream ticket,” she said Harris and Walz have given her “hope.”
“The choice is simple. Our lives are on the line,” Mazeikis said. “We either go back with Trump and Vance or we go forward with Harris and Walz.”
Mazeikis also said Walz’s transformation from a strong pro-gun politician into one who now favors sensible gun regulations doesn’t concern her, saying, “his stance on gun violence prevention is one of strength and one of courage to change.”
“He is living proof that the gun lobby and the gun industry are lying to us, that you can be a responsible gun owner and still want to keep your community safe and believe in gun safety,” Mazeikis said.
However, Rob Doar, vice president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus — the largest gun rights group in Minnesota with more than 10,000 dues-paying members — told ABC News that he’s been following Walz’s policies and actions on guns for about a decade and was surprised he was picked to be Harris’ running mate.
“Initially, my thought was that it was not a good pick if the goal of the campaign was to try to appeal to maybe disaffected Republicans and moderates, just because he has had some flip-flopping on contentious issues like firearms,” Doar said. “But then as I saw more of the campaign strategy roll out, it seems like the goal has been to more highlight him as an example of what progressive leaders can do. In that vein, I think that he’s probably serving the campaign very well, given the high number of progressive policies that Minnesota’s passed recently.”
Doar said his organization does not endorse presidential candidates and noted that his members don’t necessarily like Trump.
“I think both tickets have problematic histories as far as a Second Amendment standpoint goes. Donald Trump was a huge advocate for the bump stock ban. Donald Trump made quotes like, ‘to take the guns first and then get due process second,’ and he’s made some other statements that have been fairly anti-Second Amendment,” Doar said. “On the other hand, you’ve got Kamala Harris, who is talking about, initially, mandatory gun buybacks for certain types of firearms. She has walked that back a little bit, but I think both tickets, as far as somebody who looks at the Second Amendment as their primary issue at the polls, have some problems.”
He said Vance’s “posturing” on gun rights is something a lot of Second Amendment supporters like.
“But these are the same kind of things that we heard out of Tim Walz when he was a representative in the first district [of Minnesota],” Doar said. “Unfortunately, JD Vance just doesn’t have the longevity of a political career to be able to back up the words that he’s saying, but I do think the way that he’s positioning himself is a way that might appeal to those who value the Second Amendment when they go to the polls.”
He said many of his group’s members have expressed concern about keeping the current conservative majority of the Supreme Court intact.
“I do hear a lot from our members that they don’t like Trump, but the sole reason they’re voting for him is because of the Supreme Court and for federal judicial nominations. So that’s not an unpopular sentiment among gun rights advocates,” Doar said. “I do think that the general consensus is that Trump would be much more favorable from a Second Amendment jurisprudence standpoint in his judicial appointments.”