President Joe Biden gave his party a heartfelt goodbye in the keynote speech of the first night of the Democratic National Convention to cap a night centered around honoring his legacy while passing the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris and the next generation of leaders.
Biden took the stage to a long round of applause lasting nearly five minutes and chants of “We love Joe” as many held up signs in the crowd with the phrase printed on it, which appeared to make him emotional as he wiped away tears before launching into his remarks.
Biden directly referenced the turmoil that surrounded the weeks following debate prior to his decision to drop out and acknowledged elevating Harris gave his party a better chance of defeating Trump.
“I love the job, but I love my country more,” Biden said, also denying he was angry at Democrats who wanted him to step aside. “It’s not true. I love my country more, and we need to preserve our democracy.”
The speech Biden delivered Monday night was drastically different than the one he thought he would be giving just a month ago when he was still the party’s presidential nominee amid doubts about his candidacy following a disastrous debate performance that enflamed preexisting concerns about his advanced age and ability to serve for another four years.
Instead of getting his first experience at the party’s national convention accepting the presidential nomination, an experience he missed out on in 2020 due to the pandemic forcing it to be virtual, Biden was there to say his final goodbyes to voters with just months left in office and a quickly approaching exit to national politics.
It was a cap on a whirlwind four weeks in presidential politics that started with his poor showing in the first and ultimately only debate against Trump, immediately plunging his candidacy into peril as voters gravitated toward the former president and allies in his own party doubting his ability to continue leading into the future. His decision to drop out of the race and endorse Harris came after weeks of deliberation with his campaign and White House staff, longtime aides, allies in Congress and his family.
Many members of the Biden family were present to watch the president deliver his keynote address, with first lady Jill Biden and his daughter Ashley introducing him to the crowd.
“Kamala and Tim, you will win,” she said. “You are inspiring a new generation. We are all a part of something bigger than ourselves, and we are stronger than we know.”
Ashley Biden, Biden’s youngest child and his only with Jill Biden, described what life was like with a father whose life was centered around serving his country for decades. She also described him as the “O.G. girl dad” and praised his work to help the women of the United States.
“He wasn’t just a girl dad, I could see that he valued and trusted women, how he listened to his mother, how he believed in his sister and most of all, how he respected my mother’s career,” his daughter said. “You always tell us, but we don’t tell you enough that you are the love of our lives and the life of our love.”
While Biden’s speech was meant to be focused on turning the page toward the future, he also focused a lot of his speaking time highlighting his own accomplishments in office and assailing Trump for policy decisions and what Biden describes as behavior destructive to American democracy itself.
“With a grateful heart, I stand before you now on this August night to report that democracy has prevailed,” Biden said. “Democracy has delivered. And now democracy must be preserved.”
Biden has spent much of the race against Trump trying to paint him as a threat to democracy, pointing to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and several inflammatory things Trump has said in the time since leaving office amid claims of the election being stolen from him.
Biden also retold the story that brought him back into national politics in the 2017 "unite the right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia where white supremacists carrying torches marched through the city.
“I could not stay on the sidelines,” Biden said. “So I ran. I had no intention of running again. I’d just lost part of my soul. But I ran with a deep conviction.”
He also flexed his administration's successes from his time in office like the massive bipartisan infrastructure bill and legislation placing a cap on the price on insulin. He also tried to make an appeal across the aisle, noting that the vast spending enacted under his administration resulted in more investments in red states than blue ones.
"The job of the president is to deliver for all of America," he said.
The president capped off his moment in the spotlight off with a full-throated endorsement of Harris and gratitude for being able to serve his country for 50 years.
“America, I gave my best to you,” Biden said. “For 50 years, like many of you, I’ve given my heart and soul to our nation and I’ve been blessed, a million times in return, with the support of the American people.”