Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country.’ Michelle Obama unleashes on Trump accusing him of ‘utter lack of empathy’ and saying a second term ‘can and will be worse’ – then mocks him for saying ‘It is what it is’ about COVID crisis

 

Michelle Obama gives searing keynote: ‘We have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.’

Sanders warns 'authoritarianism has taken root in this country' as he begs his supporters to back Joe Biden to oust 'not normal' Donald Trump.“ The future of our democracy is at stake.”

Democrats opened the most extraordinary presidential nominating convention in recent history on Monday night with a program that spanned the gamut from democratic socialists to Republicans, from the relatives of George Floyd to family members of those killed by the coronavirus, in a two-hour event that was a striking departure from the traditional summer pageant of American democracy.

 

Capping the evening was an urgent plea from Michelle Obama. Breaking through the stilted online format, Mrs. Obama provided the emotional high point of the night as she confronted the president directly. “Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country,” she said. “He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment.” In her withering assessment, she accused Trump of creating “chaos,” sowing “division” and governing “with a total and utter lack of empathy.”

Mrs. Obama, the former first lady, spoke emphatically into the camera and gave a scathing, point-by-point analysis of Mr. Trump’s presidency in an urgent summons for Democratic voters to cast ballots in any way they could, even if it meant waiting in long lines to do so.

She began by questioning the very legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s election in 2016, pointing out that he had lost the popular tally by “three million votes.”

She went on to attack the president’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and said that the strong economy Mr. Trump inherited from her husband four years ago was “in shambles.” She also said Mr. Trump’s divisive approach on race relations had emboldened “torch-bearing white supremacists,” and ripped him for a lack of “leadership or consolation or any semblance of steadiness.”

Mrs. Obama’s speech, which aired in the final hour, has been in the can for at least a week, according to people familiar with the matter. The speech was prerecorded because event planners did not want to risk running it live, in anticipation of opening-night technical glitches.

Mrs. Obama, reaching the end of her 20-minute time slot, cast the race not as merely the most important election of her lifetime, but as a last chance, of sorts, to redeem the nation from the steep moral, political and economic decline precipitated by Mr. Trump.

“So, if you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this: If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can; and they will if we don’t make a change in this election,” Mrs. Obama said. “If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.”

With no arena, and no loudspeaker to introduce the presenters, Democrats turned to an M.C. of sorts, the actress Eva Longoria, who kept the evening moving between prerecorded and live video presentations. A lineup of political luminaries delivered remarks in rapid-fire format and only a few of them — Mrs. Obama, for one, and Mr. Sanders — possessed the sheer star power to linger in the perception of the audience.

Perhaps the most searing critique of Mr. Trump came not from an elected official but from Kristin Urquiza, [above] a young woman whose father, a Trump supporter, died of the coronavirus. Speaking briefly and in raw terms about her loss, Ms. Urquiza said of her father, “His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that he paid with his life.”

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Monday portrayed it as an imperative to defeat President Trump, offering a call for unity to progressive voters who supported him during the primary.

“Many of the ideas we fought for that just a few years ago were considered radical are now mainstream,” he said. “But let us be clear. If Donald Trump is re-elected, all the progress we have made will be in jeopardy....At its most basic,” he added, “this election is about preserving our democracy.” 

Cuomo accuses Trump of politicizing the coronavirus.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York unloaded on President Trump for his response to the coronavirus that savaged his state this spring, accusing the White House of first trying to “ignore” the crisis then fumbling the response by “trying to politicize it.”

New Yorkers, and viewers of cable news, have seen this performance before: His daily news briefings became must-see television, suddenly making Mr. Cuomo one of the most prominent Democrats in the country.

  Cuomo, whose initial actions during the pandemic have come under criticism, accused Mr. Trump of “learning absolutely nothing” from the lessons of the outbreak, and said Democrats wear masks “because we are smart.”

“Americans learned a critical lesson, how vulnerable we are when we are divided,” he said. “And how many lives can be lost when our government is incompetent. Donald Trump didn’t create the initial division. The division created Trump. He only made it worse,” he added.

James Clyburn, whose endorsement lifted Biden, calls him ‘as good a man as he is a leader.’

Mr. Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, recalled that endorsement in brief remarks from Charleston. Mr. Biden, he declared, “will always be an adopted son of South Carolina.”

“Joe Biden is as good a man as he is a leader,” Mr. Clyburn said. “I have said before and wish to reiterate tonight, we know Joe. But more importantly, Joe knows us.”

George Floyd’s brothers lead a moment of silence.

The Floyds’ presence underscored the message behind the protests — one of equality and the need to fight systemic racism, something Mr. Biden emphasized during a follow-up discussion with the parents of victims of police violence. The intensity of emotion evoked by the moment of silence, the speeches and the testimonials by parents heightened the sense of urgency in an online event that began in a smooth but somewhat antiseptic fashion.

While discussing police reform in a virtual round table, Biden himself echoed a police chief who said there are more good police than bad ones. “Most cops are good,” Biden said. “But the fact is the bad ones have to be identified and prosecuted and out, period.” While not perhaps a groundbreaking or terribly controversial statement, it was an interesting inclusion, given that it may not be a sentiment some on the left would like to see emphasized at this particular moment.