Brayden Harrington, teen who overcame stutter with Biden’s help, honors VP

Dartunorro Clark

18m ago / 3:15 AM UTC

Although he can’t vote in this election, 13-year-old Brayden Harrington threw his support behind Biden on the final night of the DNC. 

Harrington met Biden in New Hampshire earlier this year, where he and Biden found out they “were members of the same club — we stutter.” Biden has been open in recent years about dealing with his stutter, often connecting with youth and other adults who have the same issue. 

“It was really amazing to hear that someone like me became Vice President,” he said. “He told me about a book of poems by Yeats he would read out loud to practice. He showed me how he marks his addresses to make them easier to say out loud. So I did the same thing today and now I’m here talking to you today about the future, about our future.”

He implored voters to elect Biden.  

“I’m just a regular kid, and in a short amount of time Joe Biden made me more confident about something that’s bothered me my whole life,” he said. “Kids like me are counting on you to elect someone we can all look up to, someone who cares, someone who will make our country and the world feel better. We’re counting on you to elect Joe Biden.”

Lauren Egan

49m ago / 2:45 AM UTC

‘All the people voted off the island’: Former candidates share stories about Biden

Joe Biden’s ex-presidential rivals appeared in a Zoom-style chat to discuss their time on the campaign trail and to share stories about Biden.

Cory Booker led the conversation, joking that they were “all the people voted off the island.” 

Amy Klobuchar shared a time when she thought nobody was paying attention to a Senate speech she had given, just to be surprised by a call from Biden to tell her he’d tuned in. Elizabeth Warren told a story about Biden on the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon Bombing, saying that she was able to clearly see him as someone who had “experienced loss very personally.” 

Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang also joined the conversation. 

“I mean this sincerely,” Booker concluded, “it was an honor to run against you, and it’s an even greater honor to stand with you in support of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”

Jane C. Timm

25m ago / 3:09 AM UTC

Fact check: Was Joe Biden ahead of his party on gay marriage?

“Love makes my marriage real, but political courage made it possible — including that of Joe Biden, who stepped out ahead even of this party when he said that marriage equality should be the law of the land,” Pete Buttigieg said on Thursday night. 

This is technically true. Biden did publicly voice his support for gay marriage ahead of any official move by the Democratic Party — but not by much, and a majority of Democrats were already in favor of marriage equality by the time he made the point.

When the then-vice president came out in support of gay marriage in 2012, he made headlines, in part because he’d beaten President Barack Obama to the punch by about 72 hours.

At least one member of Obama’s Cabinet — Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan —had already thrown support behind marriage equality and the White House reportedly had been quietly preparing for Obama to take a stand for months. And much of his party was already there — 65 percent of Democrats and a majority of Americans supported marriage equality, according to a Gallup poll taken within days of Biden’s remarks. A year earlier, for example, then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris, now Biden’s running mate, announced in a court filing that her office wouldn’t defend the state’s gay marriage ban in the courts.

The Democratic Party wrote marriage equality into the party platform later in 2012, after both Biden and Obama expressed their support. The Supreme Court would not make same-sex marriage legal nationwide until 2015.

1h ago / 2:30 AM UTC

Bloomberg upstaged by fly

Dartunorro Clark

1h ago / 2:31 AM UTC

Beau Biden memorial featured on DNC’s final night

Biden has talked often about the death of his son Beau at age 46 to brain cancer and how facing such a tragedy has informed his decision-making.

Featuring Beau Biden before accepting the nomination follows the theme of tonight — fleshing out a more personal portrait of Biden to voters. Before his death, Beau Biden was following in his father’s political footsteps, but without using his last name to get there, the montage highlighted. 

It ended with a poignant quote from Beau’s 2008 convention speech: “It won’t be possible for me to be here this fall to stand by him the way he stood by me. So I have something to ask of you. Be there for my dad like he was for me.”

Allan Smith

52m ago / 2:42 AM UTC

Duckworth eviscerates Trump

Tammy Duckworth blasted Donald Trump in some of the strongest terms of the entire convention Thursday.

“Somehow, Donald Trump still doesn’t get that America should stand up for what’s right — stand tall for our troops — and stand strong against our enemies,” Duckworth said after referring to recent reports that  Russia had placed bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Trump’s lack of response. “But unlike Trump, Joe understands all of that. As president, Joe Biden would never let tyrants manipulate him like a puppet on a string.”

Duckworth lost her legs in a helicopter crash while serving in the Army in Iraq when her helicopter was shot down. Notably, Duckworth, who uses a wheelchair, stood for the entirety of the speech.

“Joe Biden would never threaten to use our military against peaceful Americans,” she added. “Because unlike Trump, Joe Biden has common sense and common decency. Donald Trump doesn’t deserve to call himself commander in chief for another four minutes — let alone another four years.”

Jason Abbruzzese

1h ago / 2:18 AM UTC

That Bruce outro is wearing thin

It’s the last night of the DNC, and we’ve all heard that “Riiiiiiiisseee uuupppp” Bruce Springsteen outro a few dozen times. And, understandably, some people have had enough of it.

Lauren Egan

1h ago / 2:14 AM UTC

‘I’ll watch’: Trump will tune in for Biden’s acceptance speech

President Trump called into Fox News for a nearly 30-minute interview Thursday night as the DNC was well underway. 

When asked if he would be watching Joe Biden’s speech later in the evening, Trump said “I will, I’ll watch.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to watch all of it,” Trump joked. “I’ve watched a lot of hate last night and the night before.”

Trump also criticized the Democrats for taping some of their speeches, calling it “pretty boring,” and promised to “go live” for his acceptance speech next week.

Ginger Gibson

1h ago / 2:20 AM UTC

Unions get brief moment at DNC

Joe Biden’s political career has been built in part from strong support from unions.

From firefighters to trades, he also spent decades enjoying strong support from union workers in Delaware.

President Trump has tried to cut into union support Democrats have historically enjoyed and his success at doing so contributed to his 2016 wins in states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

But Biden’s convention has given little time to unions. No union leaders were slated to speak.

And it wasn’t until the fourth night that unions made an appearance at all, when Biden hosted a virtual roundtable with four union leaders, including two public sector unions.