The NPR Politics Podcast - 'An Ally Of The Light': Joe Biden Pledges Return To Hope And Compassion

Episode Date: August 21, 2020

Joe Biden has accepted the Democratic party's presidential nomination. In his acceptance speech, closing out the convention's final night, he pledged to be a president for all Americans.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, campaign correspondent Asma Khalid, campaign correspondent Scott Detrow, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Asma Khalid. I also cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. The time now is 12.06 a.m. on Friday, August 21st, 2020, or very, very, very late on Thursday night. And the Democratic National Convention has come to a close. This was a night all about Joe Biden, who accepted his party's nomination for president and spoke about the choice Americans will face in November.

This is our moment to make hope and history rhyme with passion and purpose. Let us begin, you and I together, one nation under God, united in our love for America, united in our love for each other. For love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear. And light is more powerful than dark. This is our moment. This is our mission. May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight. As love and hope and light join in the battle for the soul of the nation. And this is a battle we will win and we'll do it together. I promise you. This was very much a speech that had the feel of an Oval Office address rather than a rousing rally. And he was speaking in a darkened room. This was a direct

to camera, direct to the nation, very somber address. And that light and dark theme just really encapsulates what you've been hearing all week from Democratic speakers, most notably former President Obama last night, that this is a stark choice. This is an existential choice that Americans are going to make this fall. It's time for us, for we the people, to come together and make no mistake. United we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America. You know, it's interesting to say that it sounded like an Oval Office address. It was very presidential.

And it wasn't like a speech given in a big hall that was missing the audience. It was like an Oval Office address. I thought Joe Biden really rose to the occasion. I've seen Biden give a lot of speeches where he either is mumbling or shouting, and he's under-modulated or over-modulated, but this one was delivered really well. And I think he more than surpassed expectations. And of course, Donald Trump had conveniently lowered the expectations for Biden so much by saying that he was missing a step and senile. And Joe Biden really surpassed that. So I think he did what he needed to do. And,

you know, I don't think it was as dark as the other speeches this week. The other speeches were very dystopian. This one was urgent and described a kind of a national emergency, but it was also optimistic. I thought it was extraordinarily aspirational. I mean, there's a point where he talked about, you know, we as Americans are good and decent people, and he kind of raised his arms up as if he was kind of pleading for that to be the case. And to me, it struck actually quite a different tone than some of the other speakers we've heard all throughout this week.

And good and decent were the exact words that were used to describe him all week. And Asma, you were actually there in that empty room. What was it like there tonight? Well, it's so interesting to hear, you know, Mara described this as a scene that didn't appear to be, at least on camera, one in which there was just sort of an empty room and no audience because in the room, that is actually precisely what it was. There were probably about two dozen reporters and a simple tech crew. And we were essentially the only quote unquote audience there to hear this speech in person. And it looked really different. I can't remember if it was our producer Barton, I think, sent over a screenshot of what this looked like on camera. And I was kind of floored because, you know, we in the room were sitting there in darkness.

It just, it gave the feeling of kind of emptiness and almost eeriness, I thought, because it was so silent. And then when you saw what it looked like on camera, I think it did come across far more presidential than what it appeared to on camera, I think it did come across far more presidential than what it appeared to be in the room. Granted, there's only really a couple dozen of us who probably had that take. I think a far vast, vast majority of people were getting that glimpse of what it looks like in terms of appearing to be more akin to an Oval Office address. So Biden did kind of make that aspirational pitch. He talked a lot about himself. But I think another moment that jumped out to me was kind of the crystallization of the critique of President Trump that we've been hearing all week for all of the scandals and for the impeachment and for everything else.

That all just kind of totally drowned out. And Biden and other Democrats talked directly about the pandemic and made the case that the president has done nothing to slow it. The tragedy of where we are today is it didn't have to be this bad. Just look around. It's not this bad in Canada or Europe or Japan or almost anywhere else in the world. And the president keeps telling us the virus is going to disappear. He keeps waiting for a miracle. Well, I have news for him.

No miracle is coming. And I think that's the entire election as far as the Biden campaign sees it. It's a simple argument and it touches everyone's lives right now. There's a risk in that. You can't hang this whole election on the pandemic. I thought he gave a nod to the kinds of things he wanted to do to build back better, to reverse the tax cuts on the wealthy, to invest in infrastructure and green jobs, etc. But Mara, I think that's so interesting to hear you say that you think it's a risk, because I think in reporting I've done, you know, in Michigan,

Wisconsin, Florida, the pandemic is singularly the most important issue to people. And regardless of whether or not there's a vaccine. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying it's a risk to only focus it on the pandemic. You have to have the pandemic plus other things. You have to have a plan for racial justice and climate change. But do you really though, Mara, right now? Because that is singularly what everybody's focusing on. I mean, I don't hear people, I hear them occasionally talk about racial justice. start going down, if the economy starts coming back, that is a way that you can have a slightly different conversation in the fall. And you have and Biden has to have an answer that's about more than just the pandemic, which I actually think he does. You know, I thought it was notable that he talked a fair bit about policy, you know,

he didn't get bogged down in it, it wasn't like a long laundry list or anything. But, you know, he he talked about defending Social Security and brought up President Trump's payroll tax holiday that he wants. He he talked about climate change. He he was very specific about the types of testing that he wanted to be widely available for coronavirus. You know, they're in among these larger themes. There was there was a conversation about how he would like to govern. And part of what he talked about in terms of governing was being able to unite the country. You know, this is a message that he talks about a lot in his primaries,

but it feels like it has a little bit of a different tone or a sense of different urgency maybe now as we're heading towards a general. I believe there's only one way forward. As a united America, a united America, united in our pursuit of a more perfect union, united in our dreams of a better future for us and for our children, united in our determination to make the coming years bright. Are you ready? Part of me says, Asma, that that could be part of the aspirational optimistic speech that you were talking about earlier, because this is such an

incredibly partisan moment. And I think that's one of the ways, you know, there's the I would like to end this pandemic. There's the I would like to return a lot of things to normal. And there's the idea that I want to be a president for all Americans. I think this broad way that Joe Biden is defining his campaign is the reason that he can have a Bernie Sanders and a John Kasich speak in very short order, how he can try to make an appeal to Sanders-type voters on policy, but also try to pick off disaffected Republicans saying, you know, I want to end all of the disruption and the chaos and the controversy to controversy and kind of be a very normal president again. I think that's something that lots of people in lots of different parts of the spectrum are open to hearing at the moment. Right. Well, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back,

our final thoughts on this week of the convention. to curbside pickup to activating online booking, small businesses are staying connected to their customers with Google. They can even add gift card and donation links on Google so they can get support from their community. Explore Google's free tools for small businesses at google.com slash small business. It's presidential campaign season. Donald Trump is doubling down on appealing to just his base. And Joe Biden, he's trying to build a big, broad coalition of anyone who might give him a vote. I talk with two political reporters to see which strategy might work. Listen and subscribe to It's Been a Minute from NPR. And we're back. And Asma, I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but there are sounds behind you.

You are clearly not home right now. That's right, right? Which is kind of an unusual feeling in covering this campaign, right? What's that unusual sound? He came outside and he was joined by his wife, Jill, his running mate, Kamala Harris, and her husband. And they watched fireworks together. But the bigger scene, to be honest, Ham, was that in this parking lot, there were just dozens and dozens of cars in the parking lot, and we were told that these are members of the Delaware State Democratic Party. They were cheering, waving American flags, there was music playing, and I will say after months of just not being at

any campaign rallies and not really seeing large crowds, even though people were in their cars, it felt like the first true campaign scene I had seen in quite a while. You know, with all of this focus on the virtual convention and social distancing, they actually found a way to sort of surprise us with this like drive-in rally movie experience thing with fireworks like it was um that was not virtual it was real yeah it was not virtual it was it was tactile yeah it was not virtual it was real it was pretty cool you know i i thought all week that maybe people like us were not going to be the best judges of whether this is effective because we're used to being in the room and this is is primarily a TV show. But I mean, I think if you look at the big

speeches that we spent the most time talking about each podcast night, and string them all together, there are clear themes here. There are clear big picture messages that they are trying to hit voters over the head with. Sure, like any convention. There's a lot of this convention that was like every other convention. In other words, they had a message. and he rose to the occasion. All of those things you want to do in any convention. And, you know, like every convention also has things that are totally off key and don't work and are awkward. And so, you know, it was a convention. Except that this was so much more controlled. Without human beings in there to either boo or cry, all of those moments were gone. So it was a lot smoother.

Mara, did you feel like that made it actually more effective for the Democrats to deliver their message because you didn't actually have a crowd who could potentially sway that message off what you wanted it to say? Sure, less interesting as a news event, more effective as an infomercial. All conventions strive to be a smooth, dissent-free infomercial. But human beings keep on getting in the way. This time, they dispensed with the humans because they had to. I mean the audience. But look, I think it was very effective. I think they did what they needed to do. And here's the other thing. When you get rid of the live human beings in the hall,

you can put a lot more ordinary Americans on the screen. They got many, many more ordinary Americans into the program than they could have if it was a regular convention. And you know what? This makes me wonder a lot how next week will go for the Republicans. Because first of all, as we've talked about, they shifted gears so many times, whereas Democrats were planning for something like this for months. And secondly, I don't know what the crowd situation is going to be like, Tam. I think we still don't really know what the

president's speech. I mean, Joe Biden, we talked about how this was kind of an Oval Office address type feel. That's the kind of speech that President Trump has really struggled with, right? Like he's really struggled with that. President Trump plays off the audience. If he is seriously speaking to a camera like that, is that his best format for what he's trying to do? I guess we'll find out. The Biden people surprised us with the fireworks. I think Trump's people are going to find some ways to surprise us, too. All right. That is it for the Democratic National Convention.

Next week, the Republicans will hold their convention, and we will be there every night to break down the key moments just like this week. We will be back later today with our weekly roundup. And then on Sunday, we will have a preview pod. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the presidential campaign this week from a hotel room in Wilmington. And I'm Asma Khalid.

I also cover the presidential campaign, though I am currently in a parking lot in Wilmington, Delaware. You broke free from our hotel. Congrats. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.