The NPR Politics Podcast - Historic: Kamala Harris Accepts Vice Presidential Nomination

Episode Date: August 20, 2020

Kamala Harris, in her speech on the third night of the Democratic National Convention, accepted the vice presidential nomination with a nod to her mother and tied the death toll of the pandemic to structural racism.Barack Obama attacked Trump directly, fretting about the impact another term could have on democracy in the United States. Hillary Clinton called for a landslide win for Biden.Want more? We summed it all up here. And we'll have fresh analysis in our newsletter.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, campaign correspondent Scott Detrow, and political reporter Juana Summers.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. And I'm Juana Summers. I cover demographics and culture. It is 11.45 p.m. on Wednesday, August 20th. The third night of the Democratic National Convention was Kamala Harris's night. The senator talked about her mother and this moment, this historic moment now. She raised us to be proud, strong Black women. And she raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage. She taught us to put family first.

The family you're born into and the family that she learned from her and how kind of her view of politics in the world came from her mother in particular. Her talking about that, even though she's told the story before, accepting the nomination, to me felt like a really emotional moment. Yeah, it really did. And Scott, you're right. You and I have heard that story dozens of times. We could probably repeat it ourselves. But most of the country and the types of people that were tuning in tonight probably have never heard it before. So I think it's a really grounding moment. But the thing that I

keep thinking about is that it was this really emotional moment, a historic moment. Kamala Harris is someone who, as she has now ascended to be the vice presidential nominee, represents so many firsts. And physically, at least, some of the people who would have been the most excited about it weren't there to see it. They couldn't sit there and watch it. I'm especially thinking about, can you imagine how many women in pink and green from the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority would have been in that room skiweeing, just taking so much pride in seeing her have this moment? And I'm sure they were doing it in front of their TV screens and in virtual Zoom watch parties, but they weren't there. No one could be there except for a handful of reporters. Yeah. I keep thinking about that 25-year-old Indian woman, all of five

feet tall, who gave birth to me at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California. On that day, she probably could have never imagined that I would be standing before you now and speaking these words. I accept your nomination for Vice President of the United States of America. Juana, what stood out to you? I was really stricken by the biographical video that played right before she walked out and stood behind that podium where you heard some of her validators. Actually, you heard from her sister, Maya Harris, who's been one of her closest advisors, her niece, Mina Harris, and her stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, introducing her in personal terms to the country. And then after that, Kamala Harris walks out and she situates herself in history in a way that she nodded to in her own campaign, but I don't think she did explicitly. You heard her talk about Black women across political history, like Fannie Lou Hamer, like Diane Nash, like Shirley Chisholm, who she made nods to in her campaign with those campaign

colors and the iconography that she used. And then she just she told her story and situated that story as part of the American story and something that should be relatable for everyone. Yeah, it's always been implicit, that tie, and it became a bit more explicit tonight and certainly took up more of her speech. These women and the generations that followed worked to make democracy and opportunity real in the lives of all of us who followed. And obviously, everyone has been criticizing President Trump at this Democratic convention, because that's a big part of the message when you're trying to win back the White House. But the way that she did it was a little different than what I had picked up on the theme throughout the week, starting with Michelle Obama, then Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama framed it the same way tonight. And it wasn't Donald Trump as a terrible president because he's a mean person who says racist things and promotes nationalism, which is certainly

themes you've heard from them over and over again. But it was almost this like, I'm disappointed tone, like Hillary Clinton said something like, The morning after the last election, I said, we owe Donald Trump an open mind and the chance to lead. I meant it. Every president deserves that. Michelle Obama and Barack Obama said something similar, but they all came back to the idea that they didn't see President Trump as somebody who was up for the job, who was capable of the job, who could rise to the monumental challenges that are needed right now. I wish Donald Trump knew how to be a president because America needs a president right now. And to me, that seemed like a critique that might bring along somebody who did vote for Trump and instantly turns their back on Democratic criticism of him because they don't want to hear

what Democrats have to say, saying, you know, this is someone who just can't do the job. It seemed like an overall softer isn't the right word, but more subtle criticism of him than you've heard from Democrats for years. Yeah, almost as if to say, yeah, lots of people voted for him. It's okay. You can vote for Joe Biden this time. Yeah. All right. Well, let's take a quick break.

And when we come back, more about President Obama's speech and the one overriding message that you just couldn't miss last night. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Google. Google's free tools are designed to help millions of businesses around the country adapt to a new way of working. From updating their business hours, to switching 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 the free tools that are designed to help millions of small businesses at google.com slash small business. Friends.

How many of us have them? So if you're lucky, you have friendships that are affirming and that are like a place for you to be a fuller version of yourself. So why is it that so few of us have friends of different races? Listen now on the Code Switch podcast from NPR. And we're back. And we talked a little bit about how former President Obama and his speech criticized President Trump. But guys, I feel like we should put a little bit of a finer point on this.

It's not normal. But nothing is normal, right? But it's not normal for a former president to openly and as openly as Obama did criticize a sitting president. For close to four years now, he has shown no interest in putting in the work. No interest in finding common ground, no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends, no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves. Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't. It's absolutely not normal.

I mean, this is a former president who initially was reluctant to be sharply critical of President Trump in this way. Clearly, that ship has sailed. This was a huge condemnation of the Trump presidency on one of the party's biggest nights. And he made clear that he doesn't believe that President Trump has the capacity or interest to take his job seriously, to protect and defend democracy, and to be the leader that the American people need in this moment. I don't, I can't recall hearing anything like it in recent memory. And what's also not normal, as former President Obama pointed out tonight, is for a sitting

president to consistently try to undermine the election, to try and cast doubt on the outcome of the election, to say out loud that he's thinking of holding back funding for the Postal Service in order to slow down mail-in voting. I mean, President Obama has always talked about the importance of voting. It's always felt like Democrats took 2016 for granted. But you heard first in that speech at John Lewis's funeral, and then tonight from former President Obama, really an anger, calling out what he sees as attempts to undermine the election and urging people to show up and vote and stand up to that.

Do not let them take away your power. Do not let them take away your democracy. Make a plan right now for how you are going to get involved and vote. And one thing that became clear as former President Obama was speaking is that current President Trump was watching and tweeting in all caps. He first said, he spied on my campaign and got caught, exclamation point. Then he says, why did he refuse to endorse Slow Joe until it was all over and even then was very late? Why did he try to get him not to run? Question mark. I want to talk about something, though, that that was this theme from the very beginning of the night. Kamala Harris appeared at the very beginning of the night's programming to

say, hey, I'm here. I've got a little message for you about voting before we get the very beginning of the night's programming to say, hey, I'm here. I've got a little message for you about voting before we get to the rest of the show. When we vote, things change. When we vote, things get better. When we vote, we address the need for all people to be treated with dignity and respect in our country. So each of us needs a plan, a voting plan. And then it continued throughout the night with some very explicit calls to vote in a way that just don't boo vote, as Obama used to say. Hillary Clinton, who lost, it was essentially there as a cautionary tale. Don't forget, Joe and Kamala can win by three million votes and still lose. Take it from me. So we need numbers overwhelming so Trump can't sneak or steal his way to victory.

So I think there's a lot of urgency from all of these Democrats because they truly fear that Republicans are trying systematically and emphatically to make it harder for Americans to cast ballots. You heard strong messages on the first night of this convention from former First Lady Michelle Obama. I can't stop thinking about what she said when she talked about how you have to put on your mask and your comfortable shoes and take your bagged lunch and be willing to stand in line for hours overnight if you have to, to make sure you can cast that ballot. You heard former President Barack Obama today urging people not to let them take away your democracy. The urgency is palpable, and I expect we'll hear this on the final night of the convention as well. That might be the strongest overarching message that I've heard throughout this entire week

so far. The thing I'm going to be listening for, and I'm curious what you two will be listening for, is obviously the failures in the eyes of Democrats of the Trump administration, the way that he has busted the norms all over the place has been such a constant theme, and it's been such a big theme of Biden's campaign. So he'll be talking about that. But I'm curious, especially after a couple months of Biden making a point to lay out more and more policies of what he wants to do as president, how much of that he gets into tomorrow, and whether there are any key themes of the goals of a Joe Biden presidency that

we hear about tomorrow night. Juana, what about you? One of the things that's striking to me about what we may hear from Joe Biden tomorrow, and I guess it's less about the content of his speech and more about the moment, is the fact that this is a man who entered the Senate at the age of 30 back in the 1970s. And now Richard Nixon was in the White House. Exactly. And now it is 2020. And he has been pursuing this office and rising through politics for so long. And now this moment is here in a time that I don't think any of us could have imagined that we would be having this conversation. And So I am really curious to see how Joe Biden takes the fact that he has been in public life for so long and makes it relatable to the youngest voters in the electorate, to new people coming up and growing up in this process, to people who have probably studied him in the history books and have seen him as a household name and makes it relatable to today's politics and this moment. Yeah, how he portrays himself as not the establishment, but the challenger in this time. campaign and the and Trump supporters have made such a point of trying to portray Biden as out of touch or an empty vessel or past his prime and all of these things. Does he give them any fodder for

that with this speech? Or does he come out and hit it out of the ballpark? And is it possible when the ballpark is empty, and they don't have, you know, the crowd sounds being piped in? It'll be interesting to see what it looks like, feels like, sounds like. And of course, I'm holding out for balloons, you will hear about it tomorrow night on the NPR Politics Podcast. That is a wrap for tonight. There's just one more night to go. And many of us from the NPR Politics team will be covering it all live on the radio every night at 9 Eastern, also next week with the Republican Convention. Follow along by visiting NPR.org or by asking your smart speaker to play NPR or your local station by name. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Juana Summers. I cover demographics and culture. And thank you

for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.