The Democratic National Convention on Tuesday turned to the party’s future leaders as well as its elder statesmen, including former President Bill Clinton, to make the case for presidential candidate Joe Biden in November’s election against Donald Trump.
Quotes from the second night of the four-day convention are below. The party also issued selected prepared remarks in advance:
FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON:
“Donald Trump says we’re leading the world. Well, we are the only major industrial economy to have its unemployment rate triple. At a time like this, the Oval Office should be a command center. Instead, it’s a storm center. There’s only chaos. Just one thing never changes — his determination to deny responsibility and shift the blame. The buck never stops there.”
“Our party is united in offering you a very different choice: a go-to-work president. A down-to-earth, get-the-job-done guy. A man with a mission to take responsibility, not shift the blame; concentrate, not distract; unite, not divide. Our choice is Joe Biden.”
VOTING RIGHTS ACTIVIST, FORMER GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE STACEY ABRAMS:
“America faces a triple threat: a public health catastrophe, and economic collapse, and a reckoning with racial justice and inequality. So our choice is clear: a steady experienced public servant who can lead us out of this crisis just like he’s done before, or a man who only knows how to deny and distract.”
U.S. SENATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER:
“We need a president with dignity, integrity, and the experience to lead us out of this crisis, a man with a steady hand and a big heart who will never – ever – quit on America: that man is my friend Joe Biden. He will be a great president.”
FORMER ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL SALLY YATES:
“From the moment President Trump took office, he’s used his position to benefit himself, rather than our country. He’s trampled the rule of law, trying to weaponize our Justice Department to attack his enemies and protect his friends, rather than standing up to Vladimir Putin. He fawns over a dictator who is still trying to interfere in our elections. He’s even trying to sabotage our Postal Service to keep people from being able to vote.”
“Put simply, he treats, our country like it’s his family business. This time, bankrupting our nation’s moral authority at home and abroad.”
FORMER REPUBLICAN SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL (in a video released ahead of the convention):
“The values I learned growing up in the South Bronx and serving in uniform were the same values that Joe Biden’s parents instilled in him in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I support Joe Biden for the presidency of the United States because those values still define him. And we need to restore those values to the White House.”
FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER:
“We deserve a person with integrity and judgment, someone who is honest and fair, someone who is committed to what is best for the American people… Joe is that kind of leader, and he is the right person for this moment in our nation’s history. He understands that honesty and dignity are essential traits that determine not only our vision but our actions. More than ever, that’s what we need…”
FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY (in prepared remarks):
“Donald Trump pretends Russia didn’t attack our elections. And now, he does nothing about Russia putting a bounty on our troops. So he won’t defend our country. He doesn’t know how to defend our troops. The only person he’s interested in defending is himself.”
“Joe’s moral compass has always pointed in the right direction, from the fight to break the back of apartheid to the struggle to wake up the world to genocide in the Balkans. Joe understands that none of the issues of this world — not nuclear weapons, not the challenge of building back better after COVID, not terrorism and certainly not the climate crisis — none can be resolved without bringing nations together.”
PROGRESSIVE ACTIVIST ADY BARKAN (in prepared remarks):
“Even during this terrible crisis, Donald Trump and Republican politicians are trying to take away millions of people’s health insurance. With the existential threat of another four years of this president, we all have a profound obligation to act, not only to vote, but to make sure that our friends, family, and neighbors vote as well.”
FORMER SECOND LADY, BIDEN’S WIFE JILL BIDEN (in prepared remarks):
“You can hear the anxiety that echoes down empty hallways. There’s no scent of new notebooks or freshly waxed floors. The rooms are dark and the bright young faces that should fill them are confined to boxes on a computer screen.”
“How do you make a broken family whole? The same way you make a nation whole. With love and understanding — and with small acts of compassion. With bravery. With unwavering faith.”
(Compiled by Sonya Hepinstall; Editing by Howard Goller and Peter Cooney)
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