Former United States President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama delivered a one-two punch at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on Tuesday night, urging Americans to back Kamala Harris in her 11th-hour presidential bid against Republican Donald Trump.
America’s first Black president, Obama has thrown his considerable political capital behind Harris as she seeks to make history herself on November 5 as the first woman and first Black and South Asian person to be elected US president.
“We do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos. We have seen that movie before, and we all know that the sequel is usually worse,” Obama told delegates on Day Two of the Chicago convention.
“America is ready for a new chapter. America is ready for a better story. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris.”
He aimed at Trump, the Republican who followed him into the White House in 2017, and praised President Joe Biden, his vice president who was forced out of the 2024 race by Democratic allies who feared he would lose to Trump in November.
“History will remember Joe Biden as a president who defended democracy at a moment of great danger. I am proud to call him my president, but even prouder to call him my friend,” Obama said, eliciting chants of “We love Joe.”
Obama was introduced by his wife, Michelle, who tops Democrats’ wish list as a future president.
“America, hope is making a comeback,” Michelle Obama said, in a nod to Obama’s first presidential campaign in 2008.
Pulling no punches, she cautioned that Trump would try to distort Harris’ truth, much as he did “everything in his power to try to make people fear us.”
“His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who also happened to be Black,” she said to deafening applause.
“Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?” she asked. On the campaign trail, Trump has referred to migrants crossing into the US as taking away “Black jobs.”
