Democratic National Convention 2020: Day 3

By Melissa Macaya, Kyle Blaine, Jessica Estepa, Fernando Alfonso III and Veronica Rocha, CNN

Updated 0520 GMT (1320 HKT) August 20, 2020
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11:53 p.m. ET, August 19, 2020

Harris becomes the first Black and South Asian woman nominated to major party's presidential ticket

Kamala Harris became the first Black and South Asian woman nominated to a major party's presidential ticket tonight.

She is set to deliver her acceptance speech as the first woman of color on a major party ticket this evening.

Harris, a daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, has often spoken about both their experience in America and her own as a biracial woman.

Harris was officially nominated by her sister Maya, niece Meena, and stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff.

"I love you, I admire you, I am so proud of you. Even though mommy is not here to see her first daughter step into history, the entire nation will see in your strength, your integrity, your intelligence, and your optimism the values that she raised us with," Maya said.

"We love you, mamala. We are so proud of you, auntie. You mean the world to us, Kamala. And we could not be more excited to share you with the world. As the next vice president of the United States," the women said together.

Watch the moment:

11:00 p.m. ET, August 19, 2020

Obama: "Do not let them take away your democracy"

From CNN's Gregory Krieg

Former President Barack Obama.
Former President Barack Obama. Democratic National Committee

Hammering away at a message that has become a theme of the night, President Barack Obama lamented the precarious state of democracy in America, then urged voters to go to the polls in November on a mission to save it.

“I'm…asking you to believe in your own ability, to embrace your own responsibility as citizens,” he said. “To make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure. Because that is what is at stake right now. Our democracy.”

In an implicit rebuke of President Trump’s famous convention line from 2016, when the future president pledged that “I alone can fix it,” Obama on Wednesday said he believed Biden and Harris could “lead this country of dark times,” but that their election wouldn’t be enough.

“No single American can fix this country alone, not even a president,” Obama said. “Democracy was never meant to be transactional, you give me your vote, I make everything better. It requires an active an informed citizenry.”

Obama also addressed the millions of frustrated Americans who could sit out the election, put off by a political and economic system that regularly ignores their needs while profiting off their work. Trump and Republicans, he said, benefited from that malaise and, now, was trying to use it to further empower himself.

“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,” Obama said. “That's how our democracy withers. Until it's no democracy at all and we cannot let that happen. Do not let them take away your power. Do not let them take away your democracy.”

11:14 p.m. ET, August 19, 2020

Obama fights back tears remembering Americans who fought through oppression

From CNN's Dan Merica

Former President Barack Obama speaks during the third night of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Aug. 19.
Former President Barack Obama speaks during the third night of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Aug. 19. Democratic National Convention via AP

Barack Obama fought back tears during his speech to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday as he recalled how many Americans fought through oppression but still “joined together” to fight for the future of the country.

The former president was visibly emotional as he recalled the work of past generations, including “Black Americans chained and whipped and hanged, spit on for trying to sit at lunch counters, beaten for trying to vote.”

“What we do echoes through the generations,” Obama said. “Whatever our backgrounds, we’re all the children of Americans who fought the good fight. Great grandparents working in firetraps and sweatshops without rights or representation. Farmers losing their dreams to dust. Irish and Italians and Asians and Latinos told to go back where they came from. Jews and Catholics, Muslims and Sikhs, made to feel suspect for the way they worshipped.”

Then Obama got to his point: If these Americans could still fight to make America a better place, Americans discouraged by this state of the country right now can still keep up the fight and vote.

“If anyone had a right to believe that this democracy did not work, and could not work, it was those Americans. Our ancestors. They were on the receiving end of a democracy that had fallen short all their lives. They knew how far the daily reality of America strayed from the myth,” he said. “And yet, instead of giving up, they joined together and said somehow, some way, we are going to make this work. We are going to bring those words, in our founding documents, to life.”

Obama said he has seen the spirit of those ancestors in protestors over the last four years and urged them to keep up the fight.

“You can give our democracy new meaning. You can take it to a better place,” Obama said. “You’re the missing ingredient – the ones who will decide whether or not America becomes the country that fully lives up to its creed.”

Watch:

10:45 p.m. ET, August 19, 2020

Obama on choosing Biden as his own VP: "I didn't know I'd end up finding a brother"

From CNN's Eric Bradner

Former President Barack Obama.
Former President Barack Obama. Democra

Former President Barack Obama called Joe Biden his "brother" and California Sen. Kamala Harris his "friend" as he made a personal case for their election Wednesday night.

Obama recounted selecting Biden for the vice presidential nomination in 2008.

"I didn’t know I’d end up finding a brother," Obama said. "Joe and I came from different places and different generations. But what I quickly came to admire about Joe Biden is his resilience, born of too much struggle; his empathy, born of too much grief. 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," Obama said.

He said Biden's experience as a single father and the parent of a soldier shaped the former vice president.

"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," Obama said.

Then, turning to Harris, he added: "And in my friend Kamala Harris, he has chosen an 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."

Watch:

10:36 p.m. ET, August 19, 2020

Obama lays into Trump: The President "hasn’t grown into the job because he can't"

From CNN's Dan Merica

Former President Barack Obama.
Former President Barack Obama. Democratic Nation

Former President Barack Obama laid into his successor in the starkest terms yet on Wednesday night, excoriating President Donald Trump as incapable of handling the responsibilities of the presidency and uninterested in “taking the job seriously.”

Speaking before Sen. Kamala Harris at Wednesday night’s Democratic National Convention, Obama said that while he never expected Trump to “embrace my vision or continue my policies,” he also never believed he would treat the presidency as “anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.”

A former president issuing a harsh critique of the current president, in another era, would be a more unique occurrence. But Trump has entirely changed the calculus by not only attacking his Democratic predecessors, but also the presidents from his own party.

“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,” Obama said. “But he never did."

Obama then listed the things Trump was unwilling to do, including put in the work to be president, find common ground with others or help anyone other than himself and his own friends.

“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe,” Obama said. “170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”

Watch:

10:44 p.m. ET, August 19, 2020

Warren: Child care is "infrastructure for families"

From CNN's Gregory Krieg

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during the third night of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Aug. 19.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during the third night of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Aug. 19. Democratic National Committee via AP

Speaking from a Massachusetts pre-K and kindergarten facility shuttered by the coronavirus, Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday night made the case that Joe Biden has the right kind of “plans” to rebuild the American economy.

Warren focused her remarks on child care, an issue that has grown in prominence as more parents than ever before – with schools and day cares closed – struggle to juggle work and caring for their children.  

“We build infrastructure like roads and bridges and communication systems so people can work. That infrastructure helps us all because it keeps our economy going,” Warren said. “It is time to recognize that child care is part of the basic infrastructure of this nation. Its infrastructure for families.”

Warren used a moment from her own life’s story, one familiar to those who followed her campaign, to drive home the point.

“As a little girl growing up in Oklahoma, what I wanted most in the world was to be a teacher. I loved teaching. And when I had babies and was juggling my first big teaching job in Texas it was hard, but I could do hard,” Warren said. “The thing that almost sank me? Child care.”

The future Massachusetts senator then called her aunt, who dropped everything to join her, helping Warren for 16 years. But that, Warren noted, was her own good luck – and not the fate of so many other working parents.

“Because of my Aunt Bea, I learned a fundamental  truth: Nobody makes it on their own,” Warren said. “And yet, here we are, two generations of working parents later, and if you have a baby and don't have a Aunt Bea, you are on your own.”

Watch:

10:47 p.m. ET, August 19, 2020

Democrats highlight plight of small businesses as coronavirus hammers the economy

From CNN's Josiah Ryan

Democrats played a video at the virtual convention this evening, featuring stories of a small business owner, a restauranteur, a farmer and a manufacturer who are all struggling to stay afloat as Covid-19 continues to roil the American economy.

The short video, narrated by Ohio's Sen. Sherrod Brown, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Rep. Cindy Axne of Iowa, takes aim at President Trump's handling of the pandemic as well as his trade war with China. 

The video ended on an upbeat note, however, with each of the beleaguered entrepreneurs expressing hope that a Joe Biden administration would bring about relief. 

"I believe that Joe Biden will be a clear voice for us," said an Ohio small business owner.

"Joe Biden has an understanding of what the average American is experiencing," said the LA restaurant owner.

"I have a lot of confidence in Joe Biden," said the Iowa farmer. "He's a fighter and the real deal."

11:22 p.m. ET, August 19, 2020

Elizabeth Warren pays subtle tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during the third night of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Aug. 19.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during the third night of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Aug. 19. Democratic National Committee

During her speech tonight during the Democratic National Convention, Sen. Elizabeth Warren paid tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement in a subtle and poignant way.

As the senator from Massachusetts discussed the importance of affordable health care, the letters "BLM" could be seen on a shelf over her left shoulder.

"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," Warren said tonight. "We stay in the 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, we changed America."

More on Warren and race in America: In June, Warren had introduced an amendment calling on the Department of Defense to rename military bases named after Confederate soldiers.

It specifically called for the removal of names of Confederate leaders from all military assets —whether it's a base, installation, facility, aircraft, ship, plane or type of equipment — within three years.

The plan was adopted behind closed doors by voice vote with the support of some Republicans, even as President Trump condemned any action to remove Confederate leaders' names from military bases — and the White House vowed to veto any such legislative effort.

10:28 p.m. ET, August 19, 2020

Solis: Biden and Harris have an economic plan "not only to recover what we lost but to improve upon it"

Former Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.
Former Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. Democratic National Committee

Former Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis touted Joe Biden's economic policies when they worked together during the Obama administration and said the former vice president is the fighter that American workers need in the country now.

"My parents realized they had achieved their American dream because the daughter of two blue collar immigrants would make history and give voice to people just like them. American workers need a fighter now more than ever. And Joe Biden is that person, because he has done it before and I have seen it firsthand," Solis said.

Solis said that because of President Trump's "failures," the country "must once again rescue a sinking economy."

Solis, who was sworn in by Biden, stated she's personally seen Biden work for Americans when he and President Obama, "extended overtime pay to more than four million workers" and "saved the automobile industry." As for Kamala Harris, Solis touted that Harris "took on big banks and won" when people in California "lost their homes."

She laid out the Biden and Harris' economic plan, saying that it would not only help the country "not only to recover what we lost but to improve upon it."

"That is why Joe Biden and Kamala Harris actually have a plan. Not only to recover what we lost but to improve upon it. To build back better. Creating 5 million good union jobs by bringing back supply chains to America. That is building back better. Creating millions of jobs by investing in clean energy. That is building back better. And making sure that working families can afford childcare. That is how we build back better," Solis said.

Watch: