AOC calls out ‘racial injustice, colonization, misogyny’ in minute-long DNC speech
By Andrew O'Reilly | Fox News
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Firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., called out "racial injustice, colonization, misogyny" as she helped nominate progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT., to be the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee.
While former Vice President Joe Biden was assured to win the nomination vote, Sanders did earn delegates during the primary and was formally nominated during the Democratic National Convention proceedings.
Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive freshman lawmaker who has skyrocketed into the national psyche since assuming office, has closely aligned herself with Sanders and policies such as the Green New Deal, Medicare-for-all and comprehensive immigration reform.
“This is a grassroots movement to reclaim our democracy,” Ocasio-Cortez said of Sanders’ campaign during a short speech lasting only 60 seconds.
Ocasio-Cortez has described the progressive movement started by Sanders as “a mass people’s movement” that’s working to move the country toward guaranteed health care and higher education.
Ocasio-Cortez is widely seen as the successor of Sanders’ progressive flank of the party.
She said Sanders ran a historic grassroots campaign that turns away from an American history checkered by violence, xenophobia, racial injustice and more, and “that realizes the unsustainable brutality that rewards explosive inequalities of wealth for the few at the expense of long-term stability for the many.”
“At a time when millions of people in the U.S. are looking for solutions to these crises,” she added, “I hereby second the nomination for Bernard Sanders for president of the United States.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Obama tees off on successor in withering convention speech, as Trump challenges his support for Biden
By Paul Steinhauser | Fox News
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Former President Barack Obama on Wednesday night launched a blistering attack on President Trump, his successor in the White House.
Obama, delivering one of the marquee speeches on the third night of the Democratic National Convention as he made the case for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, didn’t hold back.
He charged that during Trump's tenure, “he’s 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.”
And slamming Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the collapse of the nation’s economy, Obama argued that “the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever.”
Obama also argued that during Trump’s tenure in the White House, “our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”
The two-term former president spoke from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia -- a location selected to underscore his message that democracy itself is at stake in this election.
“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 doesn’t matter,” Obama highlighted as he referred to the president’s repeated slams against voting by mail amid the coronavirus – and his claims that widespread balloting by mail will lead to a rigged election.
“That’s how they win. That’s how they get to keep making decisions that affect your life, and the lives of the people you love. That’s how the economy will keep getting skewed to the wealthy and well-connected, how our health systems will let more people fall through the cracks. That’s how a democracy withers, until it’s no democracy at all,” Obama warned.
The former president urged that “we can’t let that happen. Do not let them take away your power. Don’t let them take away your democracy.”
The current president – who has spent much of his nearly four years in office trying to undo Obama’s major accomplishments – was apparently watching his predecessor’s speech, and hit back in real time.
"HE SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GOT CAUGHT," the president tweeted midway through Obama's speech.
Trump has repeatedly alleged that during the 2016 campaign – when Obama was still in the White House – Democratic partisans within the Justice Department and the FBI abused their powers to investigate members of his campaign and undermine his presidency. Although the Department of Justice watchdog's report found 'significant' FBI errors in the Russia investigation, it did not find evidence of bias.
A few minutes later, the president tweeted “WHY DID HE REFUSE TO ENDORSE SLOW JOE UNTIL IT WAS ALL OVER, AND EVEN THEN WAS VERY LATE? WHY DID HE TRY TO GET HIM NOT TO RUN?”
Trump was referring to reports that Obama tried to disuade Biden from launching another White House run.
The former president also made clear at the start of the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries that he would remain neutral until one of the contenders in a primary field that last summer topped two-dozen had won the nomination. But his presence for months on the sidelines nevertheless fueled GOP claims that he was uneasy about Biden.
The former president endorsed Biden soon after Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the last remaining primary rival, ended his campaign in April and backed the former vice president.
Hours before Obama's speech, Trump targeted his predecessor, claiming that the reason he ran in the 2016 election was because Obama performed poorly as president.
"President Obama did not do a good job. And the reason I'm here is because of President Obama and Joe Biden, because if they did a good job I wouldn't be here. And probably, if they did a good job, I wouldn't have even run," Trump insisted.
Following Obama's speech, Trump posted his sound bite on Twitter.
Obama has been out of the White House for nearly four years, but he remains extremely popular among Democrats. A Fox News poll conducted in May indicated that 78% of Democrats had a favorable view of Obama. And he used that popularity on Wednesday to make the case for his former vice president and for Biden’s running mate: Sen. Kamala Harris of California.
Talking about "my friend Joe," Obama said "12 years ago, when I began my search for a vice president, I didn’t know I’d end up finding a brother. Joe and I came from different places and different generations. But what I quickly came to admire about him is his resilience, born of too much struggle; his empathy, born of too much grief. Joe’s 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, but you’re better than nobody.'"
"That empathy, that decency, the belief that everybody counts. That’s who Joe is," Obama stressed.
Pointing to Harris, who's the first Black and South Asian woman to serve on a major political party's national ticket, Obama said Biden has "chosen an ideal partner who’s 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."
Chris Wallace pans Harris speech as 'a lot of Democratic boilerplate' that followed single 'magic moment'
By Sam Dorman | Fox News
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Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., had one "magic moment" in her Democratic National Convention speech accepting the party's nomination to be vice president, but most of her remarks were unmemorable, "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace said Wednesday.
"I thought there was a magic moment in Kamala Harris' speech and that was when she said, 'I accept your nomination for vice president of the United States of America,'" said Wallace, who added that the historic nature of Harris officially becoming the first Black woman to join a major party ticket was "worth celebrating."
"Having said that ... tonight reminded me of nothing so much as Kamala Harris' whole campaign for president. It started out with this huge rally in Oakland, 20,000 people cheering, and she flamed out and was out of the race by the end of 2019, before the first votes in Iowa," he said.
"I thought there was a lot of Democratic boilerplate, both in the attack on Donald Trump and the praise of Joe Biden," Wallace went on. "You know, I was thinking in the middle of the speech -- I don't remember a word that Tim Kaine or Mike Pence said when they were nominated for vice president in 2016, and my guess is other than that phrase -- I accept your nomination -- I'm not sure there's a phrase of Kamala Harris' that will be remembered much after tonight."
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Harris gave her remarks in an uncharacteristically quiet room for the occasion, as convention organizers strictly observed protocols to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Before she spoke, the DNC played a video touting the historic nature of her being chosen to serve as the vice presidential nominee for a major political party.
At one point, Harris praised her mother, who came to the United States as an immigrant from India, saying: "My mother instilled in my sister Maya and me the values that would chart the course of our lives."
Karl Rove, a Fox News contributor and former deputy White House chief of staff, also stated that Harris accepting the nomination was "a historic moment" before adding, "I have to say I thought it was a pedestrian speech.
"Maybe it was that she had to give it in that empty room, but I thought the video was great, her opening remarks about family were terrific, but I think it was pretty pedestrian after that."
Summing up the tenor of the convention's penultimate night, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume suggested that Democrats were "very worried" about voters not turning out to support the Biden-Harris ticket.
"We heard again tonight, the theme again was, 'You've got to get out and vote, you've got to fight, we got to carry on the fight,'" he said. "It strikes me that this party, despite the enviable position in which its ticket appears to be, seems very worried that people are not going to turn out and vote."