Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden stands on stage after Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., spoke during the third day of the Democratic National Convention, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020, at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo)US Presidential Elections 2020 LIVE news updates: In the finale of the four-day Democratic National Convention Thursday, former US Vice-President Joe Biden will take centre stage as he formally accepts the Party’s nomination for president’s post. After two failed attempts to clinch the position in US presidential elections in his career spanning over 36 years, this one will mark a major milestone for Biden.
During the fourth and final leg of the convention, Biden will get his chance to respond to the attacks launched by US President Donald Trump since the event first began on August 17. Biden, who will be speaking live from the Chase Center in Wilmington is also expected to address the mismanagement of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic by the Trump’s administration, the economic devastation that followed as well as the nationwide protests against racism.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris, who scripted history in the US politics by becoming the first Indian-American Black woman to get a major party’s vice presidential nomination, has censured President Donald Trump’s “failure of leadership” that has cost “lives and livelihoods.
Former US Vice-President Joe Biden will formally accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for president on day 4 of the Democratic National Convention. Biden’s family members are likely to speak before he officially accepts the party’s nomination, the New York Times reported. This comes two days after his wife, Jill Biden, delivered a speech on the second night of the convention.
Themed ‘America’s Promise’, some of Biden’s former rival presidential candidates from the Democratic Party, including former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana Pete Buttigieg will also be making appearances.
The evening will include performances by Grammy award-winning artist John Legend, hip hop star Common and American country pop band The Chicks. Read more
Several prominent Indian-Americans have applauded Kamala Harris formally becoming the Democratic Party nominee to be the US vice-president, describing it as a historic moment in American politics and a quantum leap forward for the community.
Harris, 55, scripted history on Wednesday by becoming the first Black and Indian descent individual to be nominated as a vice-presidential candidate of a major political party. "Kamala's story is the American story. Her acceptance of the vice-presidential nomination is a quantum leap forward for Indian-Americans, showing that we are taking our place in American history books," said Neil Makhija, executive director of IMPACT, a leading Indian American advocacy organisation.
After four years of incendiary anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from the White House, this milestone is a welcome moment that immigrant communities of all backgrounds can celebrate, he said. "Asian Americans are the fastest-growing bloc in the country, and Kamala's candidacy is energising and mobilising our communities in a way that will have lasting reverberations for decades to come," Makhija said. Eminent Indian-American and Democratic fundraiser Frank Islam said that Kamala Harris is not only a great choice from an electoral standpoint but also a morally sound choice. "Kamala Harris is galvanising the African American community, Indian Americans and women in general," he said. (PTI)
Here are some key takeaways from the third night of the convention.
OBAMA, GLOVES OFF
Former President Barack Obama came to power on the airy notions of "hope and change." He governed with a largely calm and cerebral air, and continued that in his post-White House years. On Wednesday, Obama dispensed with decorum and delivered a direct hit on Trump, a striking condemnation and a call to Americans, particularly young ones, to not let democracy be taken from them.
HARRIS ABSORBS HISTORY, TELLS HER STORY
Kamala Harris made history under historic circumstances. She became the first Black woman to be nominated as vice president on a major-party ticket. But she had to make her acceptance speech, an American classic big-room affair, to a largely empty ballroom due to the pandemic. Her speech had a lower-key tenor than Obama's. She used the moment to talk more about the issues that will play out in the campaign while also making surgical appeals to constituencies that she and Joe Biden will need to win in November. She tied her story to the nation's long history of racial injustice and civil rights progress.
CONVENTION OF THE WOMAN
It wasn't the year of the woman for Democrats - during the party's hard-fought primary, Biden and his main rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, easily bested several female aspirants for the party's presidential nomination. But it's been the convention of the woman. On Wednesday, the party showed off the first female Speaker of the House, its vice presidential nominee and its prior presidential nominee - the first woman to have that role for a major party. Read more
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a strong clarion call to Americans to overwhelmingly vote in the 2020 presidential election to ensure that Donald Trump "can't sneak or steal his way to victory", warning that Trump's re-election will make things "even worse." "I wish Donald Trump had been a better president. Because America needs a better president than this,"
Clinton, who lost the 2016 presidential election to Trump, said in her remarks on Wednesday to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, being held virtually due to the COVID19 pandemic.
When Joe Biden steps to the podium Thursday night as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, he will offer himself to a wounded, meandering nation as balm — and as a bridge.
A 77-year-old steeped in the American political establishment for a half-century, Biden cannot himself embody the kind of generational change that Presidents John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton represented. Even with wide-ranging proposals for government action on health care, taxation and the climate crisis, he will never be the face of a burgeoning progressive movement. As a white man, Biden cannot know personally the systemic racism now at the forefront of a national reckoning over centuries-old social and economic inequities. Read More
Former President Barack Obama delivered an impassioned speech Wednesday to the Democratic National Convention in support of his party’s presidential nominee, Joe Biden, praising him as a man of experience, character, empathy and resilience, and urging the nation to come together to oust President Donald Trump, saying democracy’s very existence is in jeopardy.
Calling the consequences of Trump’s failures severe — “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” — Obama issued a call to action, imploring Americans to get behind Biden and his vice-presidential running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris of California. (NYT)
Senator Kamala Harris made history Thursday by becoming the first black woman and person of Indian descent to be nominated for the post of Vice-President of the United States on the third night of the Democratic party’s National Convention. With this, Harris has officially joined the party’s presidential ticket alongside Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Harris also criticised US President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, calling him a “President who turns tragedies into political weapons”. Read More
As former US President Barack Obama tore into US President Donald Trump at the Democratic National Convention, his successor hit back with set of angry tweets, alleging that the former spied on his campaign and got caught. Trump on Wednesday went live tweeting as Obama and Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris delivered their speeches at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, including Indian-Americans, could play an important role in key battleground states in the November 3 presidential election, Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris has said.
Harris, 55, was nominated the Democratic Party’s candidate for the US vice-president during the party’s virtual convention on Wednesday, becoming the first-ever American of Indian and African descent to be picked by a major party for the top post. Addressing the virtual Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) Caucus meeting, Harris said, “For years, the AAPI community’s voice has not been heard.Its concerns ignored and stories forgotten. But this time it’s different.” (AP)
Residents of this small town in the farming country of northern Jamaica watched elated Wednesday night as Kamala Harris, daughter of one of the many Orange Hill residents who emigrated to the US, accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president. "This is a proud moment for us as knowing that she is family. She's making history!"' said Harris' cousin Newton Harris, a 29-year-old legal consultant in the office of the Attorney General of Jamaica. (AP)
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