CHICAGO — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accepted his party's nomination for vice president Wednesday and used his Democratic National Convention address to thank the packed arena for "bringing the joy" to an election transformed by the elevation of his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris. "We're all here tonight for one simple, beautiful reason: We love this country," Walz said.
He described his upbringing in Nebraska and teaching and coaching football in Minneosta and told the crowd, "Thank you for bringing the joy to this fight." "While other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours," he said. In a dig at his Republican counterpart, JD Vance, he added, "I had 24 kids in my high school class, and none of them went to Yale.
" When Walz talked about the difficulty conceiving his daughter, Hope, she made a heart with her hands and held it over her chest. His son, Gus, wept watching his dad speak and at least once shouted, "That's my dad!" "I haven't given a lot of speeches like this but I've given a lot of pep talks," Walz said. Democrats gathered at Chicago's United Center hope to build on the momentum Harris brought since taking over the top of the party's presidential ticket last month after President Joe Biden stepped aside.
They're also making clear to their supporters that they face a fierce battle with Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump. Many Americans never heard of Walz until Harris made him her running mate. He's served as a cultural representative of Midwestern states whose voters Harris needs this fall.
But Walz also faced scrutiny, including questions about embellishing his background. His wife this week clarified that she did not undergo in vitro fertilization as Walz claimed, but used other fertility treatments. Republicans also criticized Walz for a 2018 comment he made about carrying weapons in war.
Though he served in the National Guard for 24 years, he did not deploy to a war zone. Walz's speech followed former President Bill Clinton who returned to the DNC stage to denounce Trump as selfish and praise Harris as focused on the needs of Americans — firing up his party with his trademark off the-cuff flourishes. "We've got a pretty clear choice it seems to me.
Kamala Harris, for the people. And the other guy who has proved, even more than the first go-around, that he's about me, myself and I," Clinton said. The nation's 42nd president is now 78 — the same age as Trump — and his delivery was sometimes halting, movements slower and he mispronounced Harris' first name twice.
His left hand often shook when he wasn't using it to grip the lectern. Still, he delivered several memorable, homespun pronouncements. "What does her opponent do with his voice? He mostly talks about himself.
So the next time you hear him, don't count the lies, count the I's." In one of the evening's most electrifying speeches, legendary talk show host Oprah Winfrey said of freedom: "Every now and then, it requires standing up to life's bullies." Winfrey, who long hosted her signature talk show from Chicago, scoffed at Vance having once derided "childless cat ladies" as he argued that Americans should have more children.
"We are beyond ridiculous tweets and lies and foolery," she said of Trump. The night's theme was "a fight for our freedoms," with the programming focusing on abortion access and other rights that Democrats want to center in their campaign against Trump. Speaker after speaker argued that their party wants to defend freedoms while Republicans want to take them away.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis used an oversized book meant to represent the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, a sweeping set of goals to shrink government and push it to the right if Trump wins. Polis ripped a page from the ceremonial volume and said he was going to keep it and show it to undecided voters.
The former president distanced himself from Project 2025, but its key authors include his former top advisers. His running mate, Vance, wrote the foreword for the Heritage Foundation CEO's new book. Florida Rep.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the story of a woman in her state, which enacted new abortion restrictions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, who was forced to carry to term a child with a fatal illness only to watch the newborn die hours after birth. Dana Nessel, Michigan's attorney general and an openly gay woman, declared, "I got a message for the Republicans and the justices of the U.
S. Supreme Court: You can pry this wedding band from my cold, dead, gay hand." Rep.
Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., spoke of the attack on the U.S.
Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. "They wanted to stop the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history.
" "Thank God they failed," said Thompson, who chaired a congressional committee that investigated the attack. Trump bashed the convention as a "charade" and noted he was a frequent topic of conversation. Democrats recognized the hostages still being held by Hamas after its Oct.
7 attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed. Jon and Rachel Goldberg-Polin brought some in the arena to tears as they paid tribute to their son Hersh, who was abducted in the attack. Freeing hostages "is not a political issue.
It is a humanitarian issue," Jon Goldberg-Polin said, adding that "in a competition of pain there are no winners." The Israel-Hamas war has split the Democratic base, with pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrating outside the United Center and several speakers this week acknowledging civilian deaths in the Israeli offensive in Gaza. Democrats argued they offer "real leadership" on the U.
S.-Mexico border, working toward policy solutions rather than demonizing immigrants and trying to use the issue as a political motivator for their base. That was to counter Trump's effort to make cracking down on the border a centerpiece of his campaign.
Clinton implored delegates about the Harris-Walz ticket, "If you vote for this team, if you can get them elected and let them bring in this breath of fresh air, you will be proud of it for the rest of your life." "Your children will be proud of it," he said. "Your grandchildren will be proud of it.
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