Democrats are partying it up with all their elitist celebrity friends in Chicago, Illinois, for the Democratic National Convention (DNC), but the first night of primetime programming on Monday evening is going to hit a somber tone for the party.
Sitting President Joe Biden — who was just toppled by a coup from within his own party after winning the Democrat presidential nomination thanks to more than 14 million primary voters in 2024 — will, instead of, on Thursday, accept that nomination voters gave to him, deliver a swan song address saying goodbye to the nation as president on Monday night and urge people to support his vice president, Kamala Harris, for president in 2024. Less than one month ago, Biden was still reeling from his late June debate with former President Donald Trump and, though he survived for several weeks thereafter, finally succumbed to the pressures inside his party to forgo the will of the voters and step aside as a candidate. Harris seized the opportunity and quickly amassed power, running an insider campaign, with nobody actually voting for her, to win the nomination quickly in an entirely behind-closed-doors process.
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Biden himself has been seen in public very little since Harris successfully effectuated this coup against him. He has done an interview, made some minor comments to the press, and appeared alongside Harris in an economic address, but, for the most part, he has been hidden. This will be the biggest stage he has had since then, so, what he says and does — and what he does not say and does not do — will be very interesting to watch. Furthermore, Biden will be introduced by his daughter, Ashley Biden — who will speak after Biden’s wife and the nation’s current first lady, Dr. Jill Biden — so, the nation will begin saying goodbye to the whole Biden family Monday evening.
In addition to the Bidens’ farewell addresses, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — herself a former first lady — is expected to address the party faithful on Monday evening. Democrats will need to wait until Wednesday to hear from her husband, former President Bill Clinton — sources say he was close to being stuck on Monday too, but no cigar — but Hillary Clinton is expected to, per CNN, talk about how she almost broke the “glass ceiling” but failed in 2016. Hillary Clinton, of course, lost to Trump in a landslide that year, and she is expected to — since there is another woman, this time the first black and Asian woman, to lead the ticket — talk about the historic nature of Harris’s candidacy.
As all of these moments and more play out on stage at the DNC, Democrats are also grappling with the legitimacy of coronating Harris and a rising leftist protest mentality against her from the base. Outside the wall the Democrats erected around their convention grounds, tens of thousands of protesters are marching through the streets of Chicago, ripping Harris to shreds and comparing her to a murdering, genocidal maniac because she is part of Biden’s administration, which has been sending weapons to Israel.
WATCH: Cornel West Leads “Abandon Harris” Procession at Pro-Palestinian Protest at DNC in Chicago
Follow along here, on Breitbart News, for live updates on news and analysis as the events of the first evening of the DNC play out.
UPDATE 12:21 a.m. ET:
Biden has finally finished his speech, wrapping at just about 50 minutes–just under an hour. This first night of convention programming has gone on way too long. If Democrats do not fix this on future nights, it could become a major liability for them. Kamala Harris joins Biden on stage afterwards.
UPDATE 12:18 a.m. ET:
Biden is still going, and this speech is full of lies about Trump for whatever it’s worth. There will be tons of fact checks of this. It’s truly an avalanche of lies from Biden in his outgoing address.
UPDATE 12:09 a.m. ET:
Biden is now wrapping Harris up in his Middle East policy, something that could seriously complicate her efforts to win over “Uncommitted” delegates. She had no expression on her face when CNN cut to show her reaction when Biden, discussing Israel and Gaza, said “Vice President Harris and I” will push for certain things.
Biden is wrapping his speech now pushing for defeating Trump, and electing Harris and Walz.
UPDATE 12:01 a.m. ET:
As Biden’s speech now drags past midnight on the east coast, it’s worth noting even CNN sees through this charade Democrats are engaged in:
UPDATE 11:58 p.m. ET:
Biden seems to be avoiding Harris in his address, with the exception of tying her to his various unpopular policy ideas like electric vehicles, open borders and immigration ideas, gun control, and big spending that caused inflation. It’s kind of an interesting way of backstabbing Harris back for conducting a coup against him then burying him well after primetime on the first night of the convention.
UPDATE 11:49 p.m. ET:
Trump says on his Truth Social account that Kamala Harris has now formally declined to participate in the upcoming Sept. 4 Fox News debate:
The fact that Harris is hiding from debates and refusing to do this one is a huge tell.
UPDATE 11:45 p.m. ET:
Biden, from the stage, is wrapping Harris into all of his policies–tying her to him as much as he can. Meanwhile, Biden allies continue to express dismay with Harris’s convention pushing him out of primetime for this speech:
UPDATE 11:38 p.m. ET:
As Biden continues to ramble on from the stage about the Charlottesville hoax, reporters are openly mocking the DNC for the failed programming regiment:
UPDATE 11:34 p.m. ET:
Apparently the DNC cut two primetime speakers given how long this is going:
And they supposedly cut James Taylor as well:
Reporters are also noting how disorganized the DNC structure of programming has been:
UPDATE 11:28 p.m. ET:
Burying Biden this late at night is insulting to him and his inner circle, and that bad blood with Harris is starting to seep out into the public:
UPDATE 11:26 p.m. ET:
Ashley Biden finishes her introduction and Joe Biden finally takes the stage–well after his bedtime.
UPDATE 11:22 p.m. ET:
Ashley Biden calls her father the “OG Girl Dad,” and tells stories about remembering him as a lawmaker and a father. Ashley Biden also emphasizes her father’s work with women.
UPDATE 11:19 p.m. ET:
“Kamala and Tim, you will win,” First Lady Jill Biden says.
The speech from Jill Biden is devoid of any substance or actual ideas. “We can’t afford to lose,” she says, though.
“We will fight and we will win together,” she says.
And with that, Jill Biden is done. They had the First Lady up and gone within five minutes. Now, Ashley Biden–Joe’s daughter–is on stage to introduce her father.
UPDATE 11:15 p.m. ET:
Finally. Finally. Finally. At long last, Dr. Jill Biden has taken the stage after a strange introduction video of a crying young girl introducing her.
For whatever it’s worth, the Democrats burying Joe Biden–the sitting president of the United States–close to midnight eastern for his speech timing should infuriate him and all the Biden family. They’re trying to eliminate him. It remains to be seen if he will let them.
UPDATE 11:07 p.m. ET:
After Warnock’s long, drawn-out speech, now the Democrats are bringing up Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) to speak. Man, this event is going way, way, way too long on just the first night. Talk about burnout.
UPDATE 10:53 p.m. ET:
Beshear finally wraps up his policy-free address, and now the Democrats are bringing out Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) to address the snooze-fest. This first night is dragging on and on and on and on. It’s almost 11 p.m. on the east coast, and still no Jill Biden yet–and she goes, then Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley Biden then Joe Biden himself. It’s going to be a long, long, long, long, long night. The longer this drags on the more the Democrats lose people.
UPDATE 10:47 p.m. ET:
Democrats are leaning in heavily on abortion, having several people tell stories about abortions they got. Now, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is speaking pushing for pro-abortion policies in his state as well–all while he attacks Trump yet again.
UPDATE 10:39 p.m. ET:
As Democrats cede the high ground and keep viciously attacking Trump from the main stage of the convention, there is a deeper through-line emerging in their programming: Democrats are revealing their kryptonite. They are concerned about losing working class voters. The speeches from AOC and from the UAW’s Fain betrayed this concern of theirs, and seems to indicate they understand that this election will in fact come down to working class voters in three particular states: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. If Trump holds everything he had in 2020 and flips back Georgia and Arizona and flips Nevada as polls indicate he will, all he needs is one of those three states to put him over the top of 270 electoral votes.
It’s very interesting that the Democrats seem to have a theme running through at least some of their speeches, which is this false narrative that Harris is somehow from the working or middle class–she absolutely is not but facts never got in the way of a good Democrat narrative–and that if elected she would fight for the workers. That second point, the more important one, is also quite clearly untrue but the fact Democrats have to keep saying it–in AOC’s case screaming it–seems to reveal they are concerned about this bloc of voters and they are trying to convince anyone who might listen themselves included that they are not losing them.
How and whether Trump seizes on this weakness Democrats are openly admitting will determine his fate, the fate of the nation, and the fate of the world as we know it.
UPDATE 10:21 p.m. ET:
Raskin argues that Democrats are running against “banana Republicans who have converted [Abraham] Lincoln’s party into a dangerous cult of personality.”
Raskin is going deep on January 6, making it the centerpiece of his speech here.
UPDATE 10:20 p.m. ET:
Now, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is speaking, calling it the “democracy convention” and the “freedom convention.”
UPDATE 10:17 p.m. ET:
Now the Democrats are playing a twisted parody of a Law and Order promo attacking Trump.
UPDATE 10:16 p.m. ET:
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) is speaking now. He calls Project 2025 “Jim Crow 2.0.” Whatever you think of Project 2025, it is definitely not that.
UPDATE 10:04 p.m. ET:
Now Clinton is basking in the glow of “lock him up!” chants about Trump and rattling off the greatest hits of anti-Trump hoaxes about dictators, veterans, and more.
UPDATE 10:03 p.m. ET:
Now Clinton is attacking Trump over the New York convictions.
UPDATE 9:59 p.m. ET:
Hillary Clinton is really, really leaning into the women message, arguing that women throughout history including her mother and Harris’s mother and others would say “keep going.”
UPDATE 9:57 p.m. ET:
Clinton is hyping women getting the right to vote more than a century ago, connecting that history to now where a woman again will lead the Democratic ticket in 2024–after she did in 2016 and failed.
UPDATE 9:55 p.m. ET:
Hillary Clinton is speaking now, and she opens by saying “let’s salute President Biden.”
“He has been democracy’s champion at home and abroad,” she said, adding ironically that Biden brought among other things “competency” to the White House.
UPDATE 9:41 p.m. ET:
AOC says that “America has before us a rare and precious opportunity,” and she again repeats the lie that Harris is somehow “from the middle class.”
Harris is not from the middle class–she grew up extremely privileged in Montreal, as Breitbart News’s Emma-Jo Morris has detailed.
AOC also says that Trump would “sell this country for a dollar” and is yelling about Trump being in the pocket of big business somehow.
UPDATE 9:38 p.m. ET:
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is speaking now.
UPDATE 9:34 p.m. ET:
Fain continues to lie by claiming that Harris stands with the working class, then he rips off his coat to show a tee shirt reading “Trump is a scab.” Fain’s fake attempt to emulate Hulk Hogan from the RNC a month ago is pretty embarrassing, but the fact of the matter is Harris repeatedly sided against blue collar and auto workers including in her push for electric vehicles, her opposition to eliminating NAFTA with the USMCA, and her opposition to tariffs to protect American jobs.
UPDATE 9:29 p.m. ET:
United Autoworkers (UAW) president Shawn Fain is speaking now, openly endorsing Kamala Harris for president and Tim Walz for vice president. He also thanks Joe Biden for walking a picket line with the UAW.
UPDATE 9:25 p.m. ET:
This is an unbelievable example of media bias and extremism and proves Trump’s concerns about ABC News moderating a debate correct:
How Linsey Davis can, with a straight face, make these comments is truly unbelievable and should be a major national scandal. In a just world, she would not be allowed to moderate the debate after this. It’s not a just world, but that’s what should happen.
UPDATE 9:22 p.m. ET:
Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr–who coached Olympics basketball for Team USA–is speaking now.
UPDATE 9:15 p.m. ET:
Harris has made a surprise appearance on stage at the DNC to try to get everyone fired up from the slumber that the convention has fallen into.
She only spoke for a few minutes to try to bring the energy up.
Jake Tapper on CNN sounds as though he’s elated, saying the “crowd is ecstatic.”
“The crowd is really excited here,” Tapper says.
“It’s electric,” Dana Bash agrees.
The media is desperate to get the energy going and the fact they had to drag their nominee out on the first night of the convention to get people going again is pure desperation.
UPDATE 9:07 p.m. ET:
Hochul attacks Trump as a “fraud, a philanderer, and a felon.”
“If you think you’re tired of Donald Trump, talk to a New Yorker,” Hochul says as she rattles off the greatest hits of leftist political attacks against Trump. “It’s no wonder he had to flee to Mar-a-Lago. Sorry about that Florida. Sorry about that.”
“Donald Trump has not spent much time in New York lately except to get convicted of 34 felonies,” Hochul says.
The fact that Hochul is spending the vast majority of her time–basically all of it–attacking Trump and not touting Harris or Democrats is interesting. That’s the entire focus of the Democrat campaign at this point: Attack Trump, nonstop.
UPDATE 9:03 p.m. ET:
Hochul, the New York governor, is speaking now using an Irish accent to open her address while she talks about Irish immigrant ancestors.
UPDATE 8:57 p.m. ET:
it’s almost 9 p.m. on the east coast and this convention feels completely and totally dead in terms of energy. Still no big names have taken the stage, and we’re awaiting Hillary Clinton, Dr. Jill Biden, and of course, President Joe Biden. Several other big name politicians are set to speak tonight as well too like Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, and more. This is dragging on unnecessarily and people on the east coast are going to start turning this off and not even watching it.
UPDATE 8:37 p.m. ET:
The Lt. Governor of Minnesota who is also the DNC convention co-chair Peggy Flanagan once posted that she believes Mount Rushmore is a “symbol of white supremacy”:
UPDATE 8:28 p.m. ET:
Things are going just wonderfully for Democrats at this very low energy convention:
Whatever energy there might be among Democrats there is certainly not translating through to a national audience via television. The program has been boring, disjointed, unclear, and deflating. If this is their campaign, they have problems and big ones.
UPDATE 8:24 p.m. ET:
At the low energy DNC, Democrats have “gender neutral restrooms”:
Sources familiar with the matter though told Breitbart News there is still a ladies’ room though, despite Ferrechio’s post above.
UPDATE 7:53 p.m. ET:
Breitbart News’s Joel Pollak is inside the United Center reporting live for us:
Pollak says the feel inside is “very sedate”:
UPDATE 7:50 p.m. ET:
Video seems to show a man was severely hurt by protesters outside the DNC:
it appears he has a deep gash on his face under his eye:
UPDATE 7:39 p.m. ET:
The DNC just voted to adopt the party platform that calls to elect Biden–not Harris–as president, and contains at least 19 references to Biden’s “second term,” with no amendments. The convention chair defended this as arguing the platform was adopted before Harris’s and Democrats’ coup against Biden:
UPDATE 7:37 p.m. ET:
Despite Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s comments on CNN claiming the environment is exciting at the DNC, there is hardly anyone inside:
Remember, the sitting PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES and FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES and FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON will all speak tonight very soon. And this place is empty.
UPDATE 7:34 p.m. ET:
Now the DNC is holding a show “vote” formally making Walz the vice presidential candidate, again even though nobody voted for him or Harris for president or vice president.
UPDATE 7:18 p.m. ET:
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who ran for president twice, is appearing on stage at the DNC now. He is confined to a wheelchair after a Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2017, but has long been a leader in the Democrat Party and Civil Rights Movement. It does not appear as though Jackson is speaking, as he left the stage after a moment up there.
UPDATE 7:11 p,m. ET:
CNN is now reporting now that when radical leftists breached the Secret Service barriers outside the DNC, a total of four people were arrested–and one additional person was detained. That’s even more than Breitbart News had originally confirmed. This represents a real gnarly beginning to the DNC.
UPDATE 7:08 p.m. ET:
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) is railing against “white police” from the main stage of the DNC right now, referring to a story from the 1960’s about a black woman she says was blocked from voting. Waters is celebrating the fact that Kamala Harris is a black woman, saying black women have come quite a long way over the past several decades.
It’s worth noting though the top three speakers at the DNC on Monday night are all white–Joe Biden, Jill Biden, and Hillary Clinton.
UPDATE 6:58 p.m, ET:
Well, isn’t this wonderful:
UPDATE 6:55 p.m. ET:
Also speaking this evening is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). It’s a pretty remarkable turn of events for the leader of the s0-called “Squad,” even after two other Squad members–Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-MO)–lost their primaries this year.
UPDATE 6:38 p.m. ET:
The Democratic National Convention is now officially underway as Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison and the Convention’s chairwoman opened the floor action inside.
But outside, radical leftist protesters burst through a U.S. Secret Service wall barrier built to protect those inside in a massive security failure right from the get-go. The breach led to at least one arrest already and police officers in riot gear came to confront and repel the protesters back out and then police officers restored the barrier for now.
The chaos in Chicago is just a glimpse of what will come to every neighborhood in America if Democrats win this election.
Matthew Perdie/Breitbart News