Did Michelle Obama deliberately ignore Kamala Harris while praising Biden and denouncing Trump in DNC speech?
If you may have noticed, Michelle Obama's 20-minute Democratic National Convention speech Monday night had one glaring omission — there was no mention of Kamala Harris. According to a bombshell revelation by the Associated Press, it was because the former first lady recorded her impassioned speech much before Joe Biden picked Sen. Harris of California as his running mate.
The report said the speech was recorded remotely like all others at the DNC in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and was filmed before Harris was declared as Biden's VP candidate. This indicated that the choice was so "close to the vest and down to the wire" that even the Obamas were not in the know, the New York Post reported.
Obama oozed eloquence as she praised Biden and denounced Trump's policies. “Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. 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. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us,” she said.
“It is what it is,” the former first lady added, taking a jibe at the president's recent remark on coronavirus deaths.
“Right now, kids in this country are seeing what happens when we stop requiring empathy of one another,” Obama said. “They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protesters for a photo op," she added.
According to her, Joe Biden, on the other hand, "knows what it's like to struggle."
“Joe knows the anguish of sitting at a table with an empty chair, which is why he gives his time so freely to grieving parents," she said. "Joe knows what it’s like to struggle, which is why he gives his personal phone number to kids overcoming a stutter of their own. His life is a testament to getting back up, and he is going to channel that same grit and passion to pick us all up, to help us heal and guide us forward.”
Former President Barack Obama, Michelle's husband, shot to prominence after a 2004 Democratic convention speech -- laying the foundation for his presidential bid in 2008. That said, the former first lady urged viewers to vote in November as though it was 2008 all over again.
“This is not the time to withhold our votes in protest or play games with candidates who have no chance of winning. We have got to vote like we did in 2008 and 2012. We’ve got to show up with the same level of passion and hope for Joe Biden,” she said.
Michelle Obama also reiterated her trademark line, “When they go low, we go high.”
“Over the past four years, a lot of people have asked me, ‘When others are going so low, does going high still really work?'” she said. “My answer: Going high is the only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degrading and dehumanizing others, we just become part of the ugly noise that’s drowning out everything else. We degrade ourselves. We degrade the very causes for which we fight.”
