President Joe Biden both sought to cement his own legacy and pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer during his address at the opening night of the Democratic National Convention.
Biden, 81, made the historic decision to end his 2024 election bid in July, bringing to an end several weeks of speculation about his political future in the wake of a faltering performance at a June debate with former President Donald Trump. That event crystalized longstanding concerns about Biden’s physical and mental stamina, causing a substantial loss of confidence among voters heading into the general election campaign.
During his Aug. 19 speech, Biden said it has been “the honor of my lifetime, to serve as your president.”
“I love the job, but I love my country more,” he said.
Biden said the nation is “facing an inflection point, one of those rare moments in history when the decisions we make now will determine the fate of our nation and the world for decades to come.”
“That’s not hyperbole. I mean it literally,” Biden said. “We’re in a battle for the very soul of America.”
Biden, in promoting what he said were some of the top achievements of his administration, including investments in infrastructure, climate change mitigation, and lowering prescription drug costs, sought to tie Harris to some of those efforts.
As some attendees chanted, “Thank you, Joe,” he replied, “Thank you, Kamala, too.”
Biden argued Harris would continue pending agenda items from his administration, such as additional gun violence prevention measures, including a ban on military-style semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and pistols fed by ammunition magazines of various capacities – commonly called an “assault weapons ban.” The U.S. bishops have voiced support for such regulations.
“More children in America are killed by a gunshot than any other cause in the United States, or die from a bullet than cancer, accidents or anything else in the United States of America,” Biden said. “My God.”
Biden also alluded to voters’ concern about his age that led him to end his reelection bid, making a joke about how he knows more foreign leaders than anyone else alive “because I’m so damn old.”
Biden also quipped about the bookends of his political career, saying he was “too young to be in the Senate because I wasn’t 30 yet, and too old to stay as president.”
Harris made a surprise appearance on stage earlier in the evening to thank Biden for his “lifetime of service.” At the end of Biden’s speech, both Harris and Biden embraced each other on the main stage, amid cheers from the convention attendees.
Biden, who was previously the first Catholic vice president, and later became the second Catholic president in U.S. history, has previously been at odds with the U.S. bishops over his administration’s policies on abortion and gender identity, but he has won some bishops’ praise on refugee and climate-related policies, as well as mixed responses to his policies on immigration.
The pro-life group Democrats for Life of America urged their party to work on policies that offer women and families support in an effort to reduce abortion at an event near the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where support for abortion was very much on display.
The Democratic group hosted an offsite event in Chicago to discuss their party’s “increasing hostility” toward pro-life voters, while highlighting areas of possible cooperation, such as advocacy for an expanded child tax credit and the Democrats for Life and Americans United for Life’s proposal to eliminate out-of-pocket medical costs surrounding childbirth.
Democrats released their party platform Aug. 18, the day prior to the start of their convention, pledging to oppose “extreme and dangerous abortion bans” and enacting “national legislation to make Roe the law of the land again.” As a sign of the party’s support for Planned Parenthood, a local affiliate of the nation’s largest abortion provider said it planned to provide free vasectomies, medication abortions and emergency contraceptives to attendees of the convention via its mobile bus Aug. 19 and 20.
Pro-life Democrats at the Democrats for Life event, among them former U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski of Chicago, warned the Democratic Party was pushing out these voters with its current abortion platform. A 2022 study by the Pew Research Center found that nearly one in five Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances.
The same evening Biden spoke, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago delivered the invocation for the convention.
“May our nation become more fully a builder of peace in our wounded world with the courage to imagine and pursue a loving future together. And may we as individual Americans become more fully the instruments of God’s peace,” he said. “Guide us, Lord, in taking up our responsibility to forge this new chapter of our nation’s history. Let it be rooted in the recognition that for us, as for every generation, unity triumphing over division is what advances human dignity and liberty.”
Although leaders of the Catholic Church in the U.S. typically do not endorse candidates, they are sometimes called on to deliver prayers at political conventions. Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki led a prayer at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July. Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York also gave the closing prayers at both the Democratic and Republican national conventions in 2012.
The Democratic National Convention continues in Chicago until Aug. 22.
