Me? I'm ready to jump right in, starting with Gabby Giffords. (As with the first two nights, some comments have been edited for length.)
I’ve known the darkest of days, days of pain and unsure of the recovery. But confronted by despair, I’ve summoned hope. Confronted by paralysis and ataxia, I responded with grit and determination. I put one foot in front of the other. I found one word and then I found another. My recovery is a daily fight, but fighting makes me stronger. Words once came easily. Today, I struggled to speak, but I have not lost my voice. America needs all of us to speak out even when you have to fight to find the words.
We are at a crossroads. We can let the shooting continue or we can act. We can protect our families, our future. We can vote. We can be on the right side of history. We must elect Joe Biden. He was there for me. He’ll be there for you too. Join us in this fight. Vote, vote, vote.
Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM).
We’ve committed to a renewable energy future with exciting and fulfilling careers for workers all across our beautiful state, including right here in the heart of Northern New Mexico. We’re laying a roadmap here for what America can and should look like in the 21st century.
An America where we lead again, where we build safer, cleaner, and more affordable cities and communities, where we provide meaningful opportunities for workers and families to thrive and build better lives.
As president, Joe Biden will rejoin the international climate agreement and the United States will once again, lead on this critical issue. At home, he’ll invest in energy workers and he will deliver for working families across the US helping them build meaningful careers while accelerating our nation and world into a clean, green 21st century and well beyond.
We know time is running out to save our planet. We have the chance this November to end two existential crises, the Trump presidency and the environmental annihilation he represents. We have the chance this November to attack the climate crisis, invest in green 21st century jobs and embrace the clean energy revolution our country, our young people are crying out for and the leadership the rest of the world is waiting for. The choice is clear. The choice is Joe Biden.
Hillary Clinton.
The morning after the last election I said we owe Donald Trump and open mind and the chance to lead, I meant it. Every president deserves that. And Trump came in with so much set up for him. A strong economy, plans for managing crises including a pandemic. Yes, we Democrats would have disagreed with him on many things, but if he had put his own interests and ego aside, seeing the humanity in a child ripped from her parents at the border or a protester calling for justice or a family wiped out by natural disaster, that would have been a good thing for America and the world. I wish Donald Trump knew how to be a president because America needs a president right now.
Yes, it still takes a village and we need leaders equal to this moment of sacrifice and service. We need Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
For four years people have told me, "I didn’t realize how dangerous he was." "I wish I could do it all over," or worst, "I should have voted." Look, this can’t be another would have, could have, should have election. If you vote by mail, request your ballot now and send it back right away. If you vote in person, do it early. Become a poll worker. Most of all no matter what vote. As Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders warned us, if Trump is reelected things will get even worse. That’s why we need unity now more than ever.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are going to give us so much to vote for. Let’s vote for the jobs that Joe’s plan will create - clean energy jobs to fight climate change, care-giving jobs with living wages. Vote for emergency relief that lifts small businesses and saves hardworking people from foreclosures and evictions. Vote for the parents and teachers struggling to balance children’s education and safety. And for healthcare workers fighting COVID- 19 with little help from the White House. Vote for paid family leave and healthcare for everyone. For social security, Medicare and Planned Parenthood. Vote for dreamers and their families. Vote for law enforcement purged of racial bias that keeps all our streets safe. Vote for justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery because black lives matter. Vote for honest elections so we not a foreign adversary choose our president. Vote for the diverse hopeful America we saw in last night’s roll call.
And don’t forget, Joe and Kamala can win by 3 million votes and still lose, take it from me.
And to the young people watching, don’t give up on America. Despite our flaws and problems we’ve come so far, we can still be a more just equal country with opportunities previous generations could never have imagined. There’s a lot of heartbreak in America now and the truth is many things were broken before the pandemic. But as the saying goes, the world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. That’s Joe Biden. He knows how to keep going, unify and lead because he’s done that for his family and country. So come November if we’re strong together, we’ll heal together. We’ll redeem the soul and the promise of our country, led by president Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris.
Nancy Pelosi.
Four years ago when president Obama and vice president Biden were in the white house, they made us proud and their leadership made our country great. In that spirit, we come together now not to decry the darkness, but to light a way forward for our country. That is the guiding purpose of house Democrats, fighting for the people...
Who standing in the way? Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. So here is our answer. We will remember in November when we will elect Joe Biden president whose heart is full of love for America and rid the country of Trump’s heartless disregard for America’s goodness. Joe Biden’s faith in God gives him the courage to lead. Jill Biden’s love gives him the strength to persevere.
Joe Biden is the president we need right now. Battle tested, forward looking, honest and authentic. He has never forgotten who he is fighting for. And Kamala Harris is the vice president we need right now. Committed to our constitution, brilliant in defending it and a witness to the women of this nation that our voices will be heard. Our mission is to fight for a future equal to the ideals of our founders. Our hopes for our children and the sacrifices of our veterans, our brave men and women in uniform and their families. We’ll increase our majority in the house, we will win a democratic majority in the Senate. We will elect Kamala Harris vice president and we will elect Joe Biden president of the United States of America. God bless you. And God bless America.Elizabeth Warren.
Now I love a good plan, and Joe Biden has some really good plans. Plans to bring back union jobs in manufacturing and create new union jobs in clean energy. Plans to increase social security benefits, cancel billions in student loan debt and make our bankruptcy laws work for families instead of the creditors who cheat them. These plans reflect a central truth, our economic system has been rigged to give bailouts to billionaires and kick dirt in the face of everyone else. But we can build a thriving economy by investing in families and fixing what’s broken.
Millions out of work, millions more are trapped in cycles of poverty, millions on the brink of losing their homes, millions of restaurants and stores hanging by a thread. This crisis is bad and it didn’t have to be this way. This crisis is on Donald Trump and the Republicans who enable him. On November 3rd, we will hold them all accountable. So, whether you’re planning to vote wearing a mask or vote by mail, please take out your phone right now and text Vote to 30330. We all need to be in the fight to get Joe and Kamala elected. And after November, we all need to stay in the fight to get big things done. We stay in this fight so that when our children and our grandchildren ask what we did during this dark chapter in our nation’s history, we will be able to look them squarely in the eye and say, “We organized, we persisted and we changed America.Barack Obama
I have sat in The Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president. I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope for the sake of our country that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously, that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care, but he never did.
For close to four years now he has shown no interest in putting in the work, no interest in finding common ground, no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends. No interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves. Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t - and the consequences of that failure are severe.
Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished and our democratic institutions threatened like never before. Now I know that in times as polarized as these, most of you have already made up your mind, but maybe you’re still not sure which candidate you’ll vote for or whether you’ll vote at all. Maybe you’re tired of the direction we’re headed, but you can’t see a better path yet or you just don’t know enough about the person who wants to lead us there.
12 years ago, when I began my search for a vice president, I didn’t know I’d ended up finding a brother. Joe is a man who learned early on to treat every person he meets with respect and dignity. Living by the words his parents taught him; No one’s better than you, Joe, but you’re better than nobody.That empathy, that decency, the belief that everybody counts, that’s who Joe is... For eight years, Joe was the last one in the room whenever I faced a big decision. He made me a better president and he’s got the character and the experience to make us a better country.
And in my friend Kamala Harris, he’s chosen ideal partner who is more than prepared for the job. Someone who knows what it’s like to overcome barriers and who’s made a career fighting to help others live out their own American dream. Along with the experience needed to get things done, Joe and Kamala have concrete policies that will turn their vision of a better, fairer, stronger country into reality.
Joe and Kamala will restore our standing in the world. And as we’ve learned from this pandemic that matters. Joe knows the world and the world knows him. He knows that our true strength comes from setting an example that the world wants to follow, a nation that stands with democracy, not dictators. A nation that can inspire and mobilize others to overcome threats like climate change and terrorism, poverty, and disease...
They believe that no one, including the president, is above the law and that no public official, including the president, should use their office to enrich themselves or their supporters. They understand that in this democracy, the commander-in-chief does not use the men and women of our military, who are willing to risk everything to protect our nation, as political props, to deploy against peaceful protestors on our own soil. They understand that political opponents aren’t un-American just because they disagree with you; a free press isn’t the enemy but the way we hold officials accountable. That our ability to work together to solve big problems like a pandemic, depend on a fidelity to facts and science and logic and not just making stuff up.
None of this should be controversial. These shouldn’t be Republican principles or Democratic principles, they are American principles. But at this moment, this president and those who enable him have shown they don’t believe in these things. Tonight, I’m asking you to believe in Joe and Kamala’s ability to lead this country out of these dark times and build it back better.
So I’m also asking you to believe in your own ability to embrace your own responsibility as citizens, to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure because that’s what’s at stake right now, our democracy. Look, I understand why a lot of Americans are down on government. The way the rules have been set up and abused in Congress make it easier for special interests to stop progress than to make progress. Believe me, I know it.
Well, here’s the point: this president and those in power, those who benefit from keeping things the way they are, they are counting on your cynicism. They know they can’t win you over with their policies. So they’re hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote and to convince you that your vote does not matter. That is how they win.
To the young people who led us this summer, telling us we need to be better, in so many ways you are this country’s dreams fulfilled. Earlier generations had to be persuaded that everyone has equal worth. For you, it’s a given, a conviction and what I want you to know is that for all its messiness and frustrations, your system of self government can be harnessed to help you realize those convictions for all of us.
You can give our democracy new meaning. You can take it to a better place. You’re the missing ingredient, the ones who will decide whether or not America becomes the country that fully lives up to its creep. That work will continue long after this election, but any chance of success depends entirely on the outcome of this election. This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes for them to win. So we have to get busy building it up by pouring all our efforts into these 76 days and by voting like never before for Joe and Kamala and candidates up and down the ticket so that we leave no doubt about what this country that we love stands for today and for all our days to come. Stay safe. God bless.
Tonight, there's a full slate of notables, including Mayor Pete, Keisha Lance Bottoms, Cory Booker, Mike Bloomberg, and Andrew Yang. And, of course, Papa Joe himself. In addition to highlights from the others, I'll have Biden's full remarks, and Kamala's, for you tomorrow.
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