There are very few true surprises in American politics.
One of them took place last month, when President Joe Biden said he was stepping down from the Democratic ticket and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place.
Another? Rapper Lil Jon bursting out of the crowd during the Democratic National Convention’s ceremonial roll call on Tuesday night to help Georgia’s delegates cast their votes for Harris.
But there he was, the Atlanta native, performing his octuple platinum song “Turn Down for What” at the United Center, throwing his support behind Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“DNC, turn down for what?” he asked the crowd, giving high fives to the gathered delegates before leading them in a chant of “We’re not going back,” the vice president’s popular slogan — before remixing his iconic line from “Get Low” into: “VP Harris … Gov. Walz! VP Harris … Gov. Walz!”
The moment made for social media virality captured some of the excitement and enthusiasm at the second night of the DNC.
The roll call vote, typically a lengthy, somewhat corny trapping from conventions of yore, made obsolete this year by the virtual vote that concluded earlier this month, was a raucous and upbeat affair complete with celebrities — “Lord of the Rings” star Sean Astin, film director Spike Lee and football Hall of Famer John Randle — touching and powerful moments, and an upbeat DJ that pitch perfectly matched music cues to each state’s delegation.
After California Gov. Gavin Newsom cast the state’s votes for Harris — set to Tupac’s “California Love” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” two iconic Golden State anthems — the convention in Chicago crossed over with a rally Harris and Walz held in Milwaukee at Fiserv Forum, the same stadium where Donald Trump formally accepted the Republican presidential nomination last month.
“We are so honored to be your nominees,” Harris said before a roaring crowd in Milwaukee. “This is a people-powered campaign, and together, we will chart a new way forward, a future for freedom, opportunity of optimism and faith. So to everyone in Chicago and across America, thank you.”
Seeing the joy among Democrats during the roll call vote, followed by Harris at the same stadium in Milwaukee where Trump — just days removed from an attempt on his life, wearing a gauze bandage on the ear that was struck by a would-be assassin’s bullet — accepted the Republican nomination, presented a unique split-screen not only between the two parties, but showing how much the race for president has changed in such a short time.
What was once a contest that felt like an inevitability — a rematch from four years prior that polling showed Americans didn’t want — is now infused with energy and excitement, with 77 days to go until Election Day.
Here are takeaways from the second night of the DNC.
Another surprise at Tuesday's convention was the number of Republican officials who attended in support of Harris -- and in condemnation of Trump.
Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham called herself a "true believer," one of his "closest advisors" and said the Trump family became her own family.
Then, shortly after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, she became the first senior staffer of the Trump administration to resign as a result of the attack.
"He has no empathy, no morals and no fidelity to the truth," she said at the DNC lectern Tuesday. Trump, she said, would mock his supporters behind closed doors, calling them basement dwellers. He would complain when cameras weren’t focused on him, even during a hospital visit where people were sick and dying in an intensive care unit.
"He used to tell me, it doesn't matter what you say, Stephanie, say it enough and people will believe you," Grisham said. "But it does matter. What you say matters and what you don't say matters."
Behind her, a familiar screenshot appeared: a text exchange with former first lady Melania Trump, in which Grisham advocated for a tweet denouncing "lawlessness or violence."
"She responded with one word: No."
Kamala Harris, she said, tells the truth and respects Americans. "And she has my vote," Grisham said.
Later that night, Mesa, Arizona, Mayor John Giles, said he feels more at home among Democrats than among today’s version of the party he has belonged to all of his life.
“The Grand Old Party has been kidnapped by extremists and devolved into a cult – the cult of [former President] Donald Trump” Giles said.
He went on to compare Trump to a “child” who acts “purely out of self-interest,” adding that the country needs “an adult in the White House.”
The Arizona mayor said President Joe Biden and Harris reached across the aisle on legislation and his city is seeing the benefits as a result.
Giles concluded by speaking about the late Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, a close friend of Biden's.
“John McCain’s Republican Party is gone and we don’t owe a damn thing to what’s been left behind,” Giles said. “So let’s turn the page, let’s put country first.”
They're not the only Republicans set to address the DNC this week. Olivia Troye, a national security staffer who also worked with Vice President Mike Pence, former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who served on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and former Georgia Lt. Gov Geoff Duncan, are all set to address the convention.
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff told the love story of Kamala Harris and himself, saying she “was exactly the right person for me at an important moment in my life, and at this moment in our nation's history, she is exactly the right president.”
Emhoff called Harris a “joyful warrior,” but added, “Here's the thing about joyful warriors: They are still warriors, and Kamala is as tough as it comes.”
“She never runs from a fight,” Emhoff said. “And she knows the best way to deal with a coward is to take him head on, because we all know cowards are weak and Kamala Harris can smell weakness.”
Emhoff talked about how his wife immediately jumped into the breach after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
“That’s who she is,” he added. “Whenever she’s needed, however she’s needed, Kamala rises to the occasion.”
Emhoff said Harris was home recently when she took a phone call that he assumed was important. He wondered if it could be a domestic issue, a foreign one or something to do with the campaign. But it turned out to be his daughter, Ella, calling her.
“That’s Kamala,” he said. “Those kids are her priorities, and that scene was a perfect map of her heart. She's always been there for our children, and I know she'll always be there for yours, too.”
And that, he said, is why he fell in love with her.
“It is what you have seen over these past four years and especially these past four weeks,” Emhoff said. “She finds joy in pursuing justice. She stands up to bullies just like my parents taught me to. She likes to see people do well, but hates when they are treated unfairly. She believes this work requires a curiosity in how people are doing. Her empathy is her strength.”
Emhoff and Harris met on a blind date. He recounted their first phone conversation, when they “talked for an hour, and we laughed.” He added, “You know that laugh. I love that laugh!” a perhaps not-so-subtle defense in response to Republicans, including Donald Trump, who have mocked the vice president for laughing too much.
Emhoff, who has two adult children, Cole and Ella, from a previous marriage, talked about the difficulty that comes with navigating a blended family.
“Those of you who belong to blended families know things can be a little complicated," he said. "But as soon as they started calling her ‘momala,’ I knew we were going to be okay."
Thursday — the day Harris will accept the Democratic presidential nomination — is also their 10th wedding anniversary.
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris, less than two weeks removed from her last campaign rally visit to Wisconsin with running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, held a rally the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on Tuesday — just under a month after her Republican rival former President Donald Trump accepted the GOP’s presidential nomination in the same building.
"Now look, they left here riding high," Walz said of the Republicans who attended last month's convention. "They were feeling good, this thing was over. Well trust me Milwaukee: A hell of a lot can change in four weeks."
"Not only do we have massive energy at our convention, we got a hell of a lot more energy at where they had their convention, right here — oh yeah, that one guy’s gonna be so sad tonight. So sad, so sad, so sad," Walz added, laughing.
The campaign, Walz argued, is riding a surge of momentum, ("Can you feel it? Hell yes we can feel it. It’s what we do," he said) and the source of that momentum is Harris.
In her turn on the stage, Harris borrowed on the themes of the Democratic National Convention, taking place 90 miles down Interstate 94 in Chicago, a promise for progress, keyed in by a tagline chanted by her supporters: "We are not going back."
“This is about two very different visions for our nation. One, ours, focused on the future. The other, focused on the past. And Wisconsin, we fight for the future,” Harris said. “We believe in the future: a future with affordable heath care, a future with affordable child care, a future with affordable housing and paid leave. That’s the future we believe in,” she said, to raucous applause.
Taking the DNC stage Tuesday night to riotous applause and a standing ovation, former first lady Michelle Obama encouraged voters of all political ideologies to vote, stand up for basic freedoms, decency and humanity and make sure Vice President Kamala Harris is elected president this November.
"Hope is making a comeback," she told the crowd.
In a personal and fiery speech, the former first lady drew comparisons between her upbringing and that of Harris, particularly both of their mothers, who she described as women who scraped and sacrificed in the hopes it would pay off for their children or grandchildren.
“Her story is your story. It’s my story. It’s the story of the vast majority of Americans trying to build a better life,” Obama said. “Kamala knows like we do that regardless of where you come from, what you look like, who you love, where you work or what’s in your bank account, we all deserve a better life.”
In a scathing contrast to Trump, who she never mentioned by name, she said most Americans are “never afforded the grace of failing forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth. If we bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis, we don’t get a second, third or fourth chance. If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get ahead. We don’t get to change the rules so we always win. If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top.”
Instead, she said, “we put our heads down. We get to work. In America, we do something.”
Without mentioning his name, Obama said Trump’s “limited narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated successful people who happened to be Black,” she said of herself and her husband, former President Barack Obama, before quipping that the job Trump is seeking just might be one “one of those Black jobs.”
The former president, she said, “goes small” by “doubling down on ugly misogynist racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better.”
Even so, she said, there are a lot of people who are desperate for a different outcome than electing Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Saying the battle for the White House is an uphill fight, she said it is also “up to us."
"It’s up to all of us to be the antidote to the darkness. I don’t care how you identify politically. This is our time to stand up for what we know in our hearts is right — to stand up not just for our basic freedoms but for decency and humanity, for basic respect, dignity and empathy, for the values at the very foundation of this democracy.”
About 20 years after the Democratic National Convention that catapulted a relatively unknown state senator named Barack Obama to political superstardom, he returned as a beloved former president and an elder statesman of the Democratic Party to pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris.
"America is ready for a new chapter," he declared. "America is ready for a better story. We are ready for a president Kamala Harris."
The 44th president used his headlining speech on Tuesday night at the DNC to take shots at his immediate successor, Donald Trump, describing him as a “the neighbor who keeps running his leaf blower outside your window every minute of every day.”
“Now, from a neighbor, that's exhausting. From a president, it's just dangerous,” Obama said. “We do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos. We have seen that movie before, and we all know that the sequel is usually worse. America is ready for a new chapter. America is ready for a better story. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris.”
Obama warned that November’s election “will still be a tight race in a closely divided country” despite Democrats’ excitement about Vice President Kamala Harris since she subbed in for President Joe Biden. But he said “Trump is not losing sleep over” the question voters are asking: “who's thinking about my future, about my children's future, about our future together?”
Instead, Obama said, Trump is a 78-year-old billionaire offering “a constant stream of gripes and grievances.”
“There's the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes,” Obama said, glancing down at his hands -- an apparent reference to a debate spat Trump once had with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio during the 2016 election cycle over hand sizes and their respective manhoods. “It just goes on and on and on.”
As examples of the “chaos” Trump brings, Obama cited his proposed tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, his opposition to a bipartisan border deal that he feared would give Democrats an electoral boost and his apathy towards women losing access to reproductive health care as abortion bans spread across the country.
“Donald Trump wants us to think that this country is hopelessly divided between us and them, between the ‘Real Americans,’ who of course, support him, and the outsiders who don't. And he wants you to think that you'll be richer and safer, if you will just give him the power to put those other people back in their place,” Obama said. “It is one of the oldest tricks in politics from a guy whose act has, let's face it, gotten pretty stale.”
Meanwhile, Harris, Barack Obama said, has spent her life and career as "a champion" -- and going back to the neighbor and leaf blower analogy about Trump, he called the vice president the neighbor "rushing over to help when you need a hand."
Further, Obama said, she’s happy to stand up and fight, even pressuring allies.
"After the home mortgage crisis, she pushed me and my administration hard to make sure homeowners got a fair settlement," he said. "Didn’t matter that I was a Democrat. Didn’t matter that she had knocked on doors for my campaign and I won. She was going to fight to get as much relief as possible for the families who deserve it."
He also co-signed her economic plans, her promises to protect Medicare and Medicaid and to reaffirm abortion care.
"In other words, Kamala Harris won’t be focused on her problems. She’ll be focused on yours," Obama said, before again drawing a line between Harris and Trump. "As prsident, she won’t just cater to her own supporters and punish those who refuse to kiss the ring or bend the kne, she’ll work on behalf of every American."
While declaring that the “torch has been passed,” former President Barack Obama took time to lionize his one-time White House partner, telling the crowd that history will remember President Joe Biden as an “outstanding president who defended democracy at a moment of great danger.”
Obama characterized Biden as a president who holds the values America needed most over the last four years, noting his leadership in reviving the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic and appearing to allude to his decision to step aside from the 2024 race.
“We needed a leader who was steady and brought people together and was selfless enough to do the rarest thing there is in politics: putting his own ambition aside for the sake of the country,” the former president said.
Obama noted that he and Biden “became brothers” when they worked alongside one another as president and vice president, adding he came to admire the now-president’s empathy, decency, hard-earned resilience and belief that everyone deserves a fair shot more than anything else.
“I am proud to call him my president,” Obama said. “But I am even prouder to call him my friend."
In an address filled with calls to action, Obama reminded his partymates that they — and their fellow Americans — must understand the heart of American society comes with mutual respect.
"I think most Americans understand that democracy isn't just a bunch of abstract principles and dusty laws in some book 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," Obama said. "That sense of mutual respect has to be part of our message. Our politics have become so polarized these days that all of us across the political spectrum seem so quick to assume the worst in others."
The urge to shout down opponents, to dominate through anger and pressure, he said, is noise that drowns out the message. Eventually, he said, "regular folks just tune out, or they don’t bother to vote."
"We need to remember that we’ve all got our blind spots and contradictions and prejudices, and that if we want to win over those who aren’t yet ready to support our candidates, we need to listen to their concerns and maybe learn something in the process," Obama said.
He likened it to an awkward conversation with a family member. "We don’t automatically assume they’re bad people — we recognize the world is moving fast, that they need time and maybe a little encouragement to catch up. Our fellow citizens deserve the same grace we hope they’ll extend to us."
Trust in strangers, he said, is hard to find right now, especially in a culture "that puts a premium on things that don’t last: money, fame, status — likes…we build all manner of walls and fences around ourselves and then we wonder why we feel so alone."
Obama urged Democrats, and Americans as a whole, to step away from the siren call of social media, and focus on building ties between one another in community spaces.
"The vast majority of us do not want to live in a country that’s bitter and divided," Obama said. "We want something better. We want to be better, and the joy and the excitement that we’re seeing around this campaign tells us we’re not alone."