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OUTGOING US PRESIDENT Joe Biden used his final speech as president at a Democratic convention to set a defiant tone against Donald Trump, urging people to elect Kamala Harris as the country’s next president.
He strongly criticised Donald Trump throughout the speech (“He says we’re losing. HE’S the loser!”) in a marked change of tactic.
“Who the hell does he think he is? These are the words of a person who is not worthy of being Commander in Chief. Period. Not then. Not now. And not ever,” he told the crowd.
He used the speech to document his achievements, particularly for working Americans, and set out a vision for what he would like to happen after his presidency.
Quoting from a song, he said: “Let me know in my heart, when my days are through, America, America, I gave my best to you.”
He said he had accepted the decision to stand down. “I love the job, but I love my country more. I love my country more. And all this talk about how I’m angry at all those people who said I should step down, that’s not true.”
In a confident performance, he was visibly buoyed by the support of the crowd in what will be one of the final big speeches of his presidency.
He received a three-and-a-half minute ovation from the crowd when he walked on stage, with chants of “thank you Joe” several times throughout his appearance.
The speech started more than 40 minutes later than the planned 10pm start, meaning Biden missed a coveted prime-time slot on US television; the convention itself was delayed as the tight security meant many delegates weren’t in the room on time.
Biden was spoken about warmly and generously by delegates on the floor.
“Joe Biden should go down in American history as a hero,” Tom, a delegate from the state of Washington, told The Journal.
Another said that she believed “history will be kind to him”.
Biden was the last of dozens of speakers on the first night of the Democratic National Convention which is taking place in Chicago, Illinois.
The event was a massive production. Over the five-and-a-half hours before Biden spoke, more than 60 people took to the stage to give speeches, perform songs, and rubber stamp official party business.
Singer Jason Isbell performed a song; 82-year-old civil rights leader Jessie Jackson was applauded for several minutes on the stage; and actor Tony Goldwyn played MC for the final two hours of the production.
Kamala Harris made a brief unexpected appearance to pay tribute to Joe Biden and thank him for his service to the country.
Hillary Clinton praised Biden for his “dignity and decency” before speaking at length about Kamala Harris, drawing parallels between both their careers. “As president, she will always have our backs and she will be a fighter for us,” she said. “We have [Trump] on the run now.”
The tone was upbeat, confident, and on message at all times.
The crowd clapped dutifully as the huge screens showed videos of Joe Biden before his speech, and cheered loudly when Kamala Harris was shown.
Donald Trump was booed almost every time he was mentioned, while a Michigan state senator mentioned Project 2025 which got even louder boos than Trump did.
One recurring motif over the evening was video clips that played between speakers, which showed former Trump voters describing why they would not be voting for him again – a group that Democrats will be targeting in swing states in November’s election.
The crowd chanted “We’re not going back” and “When we fight, we win” throughout the night.
The production took more than 17 months to plan, with the final line-up only being confirmed hours before the event began – indicative, perhaps, of all the work that had to be done once Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden on the ticket.
Biden’s appearance on the Monday night clears the way for the rest of the convention to focus on November’s election.
Barack and Michelle Obama are due to headline the convention on Tuesday night, with vice presidential pick Tim Walz speaking on Wednesday. Kamala Harris will wrap up the conference with her speech on Thursday night.
With just under 11 weeks to go until the country goes to the polls, the Democrats will be hoping that this week will be a tactful goodbye to Joe Biden, a careful positioning of Kamala Harris – and the chance to bring the fight to the Republicans.
Christine Bohan is reporting from the DNC in Chicago all this week. You can read her on the site here.
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Trump will win
@AphroBeat: nah,he won’t, tissue ?
I’m gonna need the box please
@AphroBeat: Yes, he will claim he won, just like you are now claiming he will win. A cult thing? The leader is infallible?
@Numinous20111: he’s not my leader. All I said was that he’d win. I am not a fan!
@AphroBeat: Okay. Point taken.
@AphroBeat: I know you are kidding and I wonder why the reps don’t replace Trump. He’s a liability.
@smatrix mantra: What odds that he will pull out? He won’t want to be beaten twice.
Mind you there’s no certainty that Harris will continue this upward trend. There’s always something negative around the corner.
@smatrix mantra: Because his base would never allow it and Trump would NEVER step down. Unlike Biden, who stepped down for the good of his country and his party, Trump has loyalty to no one but Trump.
@AphroBeat: even his own backers think he s lost the plot so no he wont
@Bert Carolan: Its hard to see Trump pulling out unless he had a promise from his replacement to pardon him.
@AphroBeat: You may be right. Talking to a mate home from the USA yesterday, he’s not a Trump fan but says there is a lot of support for him and if he had been shot dead a few weeks ago the country could have slid into civil war. Its still 50/50 at this stage
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: He doesn’t believe he’ll go to jail. Even if he was to go to jail he’d prefer that than to be beaten again. And by a woman. And by a black woman.
It would probably suit his idea of martyrdom.
@AphroBeat: Biden beat him .
If reps put a much younger candidate forward, Harris looks old. Which she is to be honest. But perhaps she is too smart for most US Americans, and the majority will just default to low I&EQ.
@AphroBeat: No at all, that ship has sailed.
Bidens achievements? Let’s see, well there’s arming and financing the murder of thousands of innocents in Gaza,not to mention financing a needless proxy war in Ukraine that’s caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and brought us to the brink of WW3! And that’s just for starters..
@Jonn: the war in Ukraine is a result of Putins policies, nobody else
@Jonn: I think you will find Israel had armed themselves when Joe Biden was still in short pants
@Declan O’Sullivan:
True,but it’s on the watch of Biden and his Zionist cabinet that they’ve been given the go ahead to unleash hell..no US billions,no genocide!
@Argus Romsworth:
Not really..again I’d suggest maybe broadening your sources of information beyond the BBC and CNN. The war could have easily been avoided by negotiation, diplomacy, but even now NATO refuses to sit down and talk, still ramping things up,latest example being the utterly pointless Ukrainian ‘invasion’ of Russia,which will only succeed in bringing us even closer to WW3.
@Jonn: His Zionist cabinet? Funny that Trump calls Harris antisemitic so that should balance things up.
@Jonn: msm conspiracy? Wef?
@Jonn: And what would this “negotiation” have achieved?
Putin wanted Ukraine.
Putin could not allow a successful democracy that had been part of the Soviet Union on russias border. A democracy that would show to all of russia just how bad russia itself is.
Putin had been trying to install puppet regimes in Ukraine since the beginning.
This war happened because Putin failed.
The only way this war could have been avoided by “negotiation” is if we allowed Putin to turn Ukraine into a puppet, allowed a free people to fall into tyranny.
@Declan O’Sullivan: the sale of $20 billion in arms last week from the US to Israel stands out though
It’s a Zionist cabinet, do the homework yourself, how many of them are from a particular ‘religion’,if that’s the word for it?
@Jonn: seeing how much Trump showed his admiration for the Israeli leader, during his term in office, and if he was still in power now, it would have been the very same, if not much worse, as he has zero time for the Palestinians, but he loves tyrants though
@Charlie Crown:
What’s the obsession on here with Trump,Trump hasn’t been President for last two years of Ukraine and Gaza,Biden has? Is Trump in the pocket of the Zionists and the all-powerful US Jewish lobby? Absolutely, the US is a captured state,the tail is wagging the dog!
@Jonn: The obsession is with a little thing called Truth, which is absent from the posts of so many Trump apologists.
Where they, for instance, try to claim that the horrible things we are experiencing would not be happening if Trump were president of the US, when it is perfectly obvious to any with a modicum of common sense that Trump was Putins Puppet, and cosied up to the vilest of the tyrants around the world.
That the US Democratic Partys major failing is in its support for the israeli crimes against humanity does not alter that.
Journal you are just eroding confidence by being left wing biased, please report the facts and enough already with this left wing prop!
@Tee: Which part of the report is not fact?
How anyone with even a wiff of honesty and integrity ,could choose the orange thing over President Joe , Says alot about standards of education and upbringing
@Robert Halvey: It’s a cult. You can’t tell as many lies as Trump and have his followers “believe” them, but more importantly, defend them, unless you’re in a cult.
@Robert Halvey: When you consider it’s the same people that told you Joe was compos montis also told you Safe and Effective are now telling you Harris is sharp and electable, The joke is on you at this point. All the Best.
@087 bed: totally dismissing trump’s role in promoting vaccines to suit your agenda then? They were launched on his watch, and he emphasised how safe and effective they were as much as anyone.
@Robert Halvey: you’ve fallen onto the trap of it being about personality. It’s policy.
@087 bed: Harris is not an adjudicated r*pist with 34 felony convictions. Just saying…
@Sickof thisshit: the only policy the orange thing had was to demonise the most vulnerable grift every cent he could from the poorly educated and cry and winge poor me ,every time he got caught communicating crimes,
Embarrassing. Trump will win and Joe will retire to his basement
@common sense: If Trump loses, can you advise me of what account name you’re going to mutate to, so that I can rub it in your face.
@Numinous20111: why such spite? If he loses, you win. Why not celebrate your win?
@Oh Mammy: Why not?
MAGA has been spreading its evil and hate in every way it could.
Why should they not see a little return on their investment?
American politics in particular is depressingly ridiculous. This Democratic National Convention is literally a pantomime that goes on for days, giving the attendees the opportunity to boo, hiss and cheer to the expected prompts for the pantomime villains or heros.
Alleged policies and plans to improve things are all just aspirational finger paintings, that have no detail or substance, much less any likelihood of ever coming to pass.
Kamala Harris is being framed just as Joe Biden was in his campaign, with not being Trump as her only real selling point. Regardless of the outcome in November, the USA appears to be a divided nation that is sadly in decline, from the beacon of hope and prosperity that it once was in the world.
@Dvsespaña: If not being Trump is her only real selling point, it’s an extremely good one.
@Dvsespaña: Leaving policies aside , this election is a choice between Democracy and Fascism.
@Dvsespaña: A pantomime? Oh no, it isn’t ….
@Brendan O’Brien: That very glib, but if you were an American citizen, would not being Trump be a qualification that would make you life better, improve the economy in a way that makes you financially better off or ensure a bright future for your children?
Politics is meant to be about managing public finances, enacting policies that benefit all the people you are meant to represent, and making decisions that make their lives better.
Much like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris might as well be a cardboard cutout, she is an empty vessel and a willing stooge for corporate interests, none of which will benefit ordinary American citizens in the slightest.
It hard to believe given that he is essentially a caricature of himself, but between Harris and Trump, he is probably the better candidate.
@Dvsespaña: @Dvsespaña: Except Trump does the opposite of all these things.
Fascism created the Big Lie, and has been using it to effect ever since.
You say that Biden and Harris are the stooges of corporate interests, ignorant of the simple fact that many US corporates have been taking Bidens policies to the courts, which gives the lie to that claim.
And refusing to acknowledge that Trump IS corporate America, not merely the stooge you claim of Biden and Harris.
If you guys had half a brain…
…you still shouldnt be let out on your own.
@Dvsespaña: I’m not the proven rap ist and convicted felon is a decent platform, no? You never seem to speak negatively about said sex offender. Any reason?
@Dvsespaña:
“Politics is meant to be about managing public finances, enacting policies that benefit all the people you are meant to represent, and making decisions that make their lives better.”
There is no way someone can write that and then say that Trump is a better candidate using that criteria. Let’s ignore that he’s a proven sex pest. That he’s a convicted felon. That he’s not at all intelligent. Based on what you wrote there’s only one sane choice. Kamala for president.
Under Biden:
1. Border crossings have declined.
2. The state of the US economy has improved which has improved the state of our own economy.
3. The wealth divide has decreased.
@Argus Romsworth:
Border crossings have declined? Are you just trolling? I’d love to know where you get your information from?
@Jonn: https://immigrationimpact.com/2024/07/19/why-are-border-crossings-lowest-level-in-four-years/
@Tricia G28: I think John would call that an msm conspiracy
@Argus Romsworth: Oh, I don’t doubt it.
@Jonn: we don’t have to ask where you get your information from. You’ve obviously dOnE yOuR oWn rEsEaRcH.
@Argus Romsworth: the border crossings fell to the lowest level in july for the first time in 4 years. Just wondering who was president 4 years ago???
@Shane Jordan: that would have been Trump
@Argus Romsworth: so border crossings have been going up every since biden got in office and have only come down in July??
@Tricia G28:
Debating with you people really is the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.The report quoted is from a leftist, pro-immigration NGO founded and run by immigration lawyers and funded by George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and the rest of the usual suspects.As such it’s highly partisan and completely worthless! Next…
@Jonn: So, you cannot dispute the figures then?
@Shane Jordan: And who has been blocking anything that might help.
Congressional Democrats and Republicans came together and agreed a bill to address immigration.
Until Trump told Republicans not to pass it.
Thinking he could get the feeble-minded to blame Democrats.
Was he right?
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere:
Erm,I thought I just did!
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: Yes but what else were the democrats asking for along with helping with the border. Millions to be sent to Ukraine and isreal. I have to wonder why is that? Why do they keep wanting to give money to other countries and not help their own country first
Go raibh mile maith agat President Biden
A month ago every Democrat said Sleepy Joe was the ideal candidate to lead the US for another 4 years.
Hmmm….
@Paul:
Between Biden and Trump, Biden IS the better candidate.
Between Harris and Trump, Harris IS the better candidate.
Between a skateboarding dog and Trump, the dog is the better candidate.
It’s a binary choice. How are you not getting that?
Would you like the chicken or the steaming pile of dung, cut through with glass?
Does Kamela like a little Drinkypoo?
https://youtu.be/GoKCEFdHSB0?si=nCqr8H_WckbOWKHh&t=50
@Dan Murphy: Not making a whole lot of sense is she? Of course Trump makes no sense without ever taking a drink. Who would you have?
It’s not even our election, but the poison from the US is infecting the discourse here. Get a grip, guys!
@Nick Vasilakis: Take that up with the purveyors of the poison.
Or are we supposed to ignore it?
In 2016 Trump won the republican nomination as a result of his extreme comments, tweets etc. He was then advised by all around him to moderate those comments if he wanted to win the presidency. Instead he doubled down, went even more extreme.
We see something similar now, he should be concentrating on the cost of living in US and laying it at Harris’s door. Instead he rambles, bizarre childish nonsense that has no message. Mocking her laugh???
I don’t believe he actually wanted to be president in 2016, he ran to amuse himself. Having won he realised that it was the best attention kick ever. Does he really want it this time either? He doesn’t care about Gaza or Ukraine or anything but himself.
@Bert Carolan: Oh, he wants it.
He NEEDS it
Without it his legal jeopardy is EXTREME
Check out Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow’s Project 2025 mini lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA0ROPP73PU – She brings out the 900-page published book, but what will Republicans make of it? Trump claims he’s not involved, while his supporters will likely think it’s either lies or it won’t be all that bad. I wish I could simply pity them.
@Mick de Neeve: Trump praised Project 2025 early this year while speaking at the Heritage Foundation. He’d never read a 900 page document, but a number of his former aids and administration staff drew up and promoted the document. Trump doesn’t care about policy or strategy, only in being famous and making people think he’s always a winner.
Biden asks about President Trump, “who the hell does he think he is?”.
The answer of course is that they both share the same recent accomplishment, both were successful in winning their respective party’s primaries and getting the quota of delegates to enable them to be nominated as the party candidate for the upcoming election.
The difference is that the Republican party hierarchy respects its primary process while the Democrat party doesn’t.
And so we have this manufactured gleefest for the alcoholic idiot that the Democrat party hierarchy has chosen to replace him with on the ticket.
I think this is another occasion when you reap what you sow.
@Garry Coll: do you need a tissue Gerry?
@Garry Coll: The guy would came through the US Democratic Party’s Primary process pulled out before the convention to select their candidate.
US voters can still choose to vote for Biden, should they wish.
Poor auld Joe. Hooped up on goof balls to deliver that speech.
@Shimo F: He’s not running anymore, you can lay off the lies about his mental wellbeing.
@Tricia G28: you only have to watch his speech to know there’s no lies being told
@Mick O’K:doesn’t make a blind difference right now, have you seen trumps speeches of late. Muddling his words,rambling pure rubbish not even a child would say and he IS going for presidency.
@HisMastersAlibi: no one here is saying it’s lies that he is though. I addressed Tricia, did you see Bidens speech? What are your thoughts if you did?
@Mick O’K: Biden’s speech is being talked about as a triumph.
One of Trump’s recent speeches of some minutes duration – or rambling babble – was found to contain hundreds of lies.
But that’s simply normal for the US right wing for quite some time now.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: who’s doing the talking on that? It was gaff after gaff yet again.
He actually said “Kamala and I are committed to
Illegal immigration”. So that was either a gaff or he said the quiet part out loud
@Mick O’K: Read it.
https://time.com/7012342/watch-president-biden-dnc-speech/
You just might learn something.
Something about yourself.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: did he or not he not make gaff after gaff? Did he or did he not have trouble actually speaking? If you answer no to any of these you clearly did not watch his speech
US politics is a mess and if the wrong candidate wins then it could very well get so much worse not only for the US people but globally. Strange and bizarre as it was, the movie ‘idiocracy’ could actually be prophetic
Can’t stand Trump, but Biden will be remembered for allowing the nazi Israel state to commit genocide.
@Daniel Roche: Sadly, you’re probably not wrong.
If you haven’t looked up Project 2025 yet, look it up. There is not nearly enough coverage of what will be Trump’s playbook when he is elected. Many of his former staff members have written it.
Gut the civil service and stuff it with MAGA loyalist.
Effectively end federal agencies like the EPA, FDA etc
The stripping of people’s rights
And on and on. 1000 pages to turn America into a theocratic dictatorship.
This isn’t conspiracy shhh te. Respected journalists and politicians are talking about it, it’s just not making the headlines for some reason.
@Ronan Mc: ‘Respected journalists and politicians’ You’re a hoot Ronan, thanks.
@Ronan Mc: Yep!
It’s a plan to implement full-blown fascism.
@Marie Power: Not all politicians in the US are Republican, so there are some with a level of decency and respectability.
But pretty much all US media with any reach is owned by just a few corporations and billionaires, so you wont find much respectability there.
‘Biden’s final convention speech was feisty, combative, and’…incoherent.
Bide armed the jenn oh siders and is as responsible as net and yahoo for the death of every baby and innocent s laugh tered in Gaza.
He leaves a terrible legacy and will answer for his crimes one day.
Murderer!
Harrison Ford for president….but the 1980′s/90′s version of Ford. Not the last Raiders Dial o Destiny one – that’s a deal breaker as he’ll only make Waller-Fridge magnet VP. And, as a plus, he’s got experience from Airforce One -”GET OFF MY PLANE!”
@Keth Tgi: Other Suggestions:
Michael Douglas (Works through lunch)
Morgan Freeman (Good with apocalypses)
Daniel Day-Lewis (Well-Heeled/Charasmaric)
@Keth Tgi: is there anything to be said for Martin Sheen ?
have your say