Former US president Barack Obama on Tuesday told fellow Democrats in Chicago that “the torch has been passed” to US Vice President Kamala Harris and that the US is ready for her to become president.
Obama, who was greeted with rapturous applause and cheers at the packed arena hosting the party’s nominating convention, said Harris would fight for Americans, and called her November poll rival, former US president Donald Trump, “dangerous.”
“Kamala Harris is ready for the job. This is a person who has spent her life fighting for people who need a voice,” Obama said.
Photo: AFP
Harris is “someone who sees you and hears you and will get up every single day and fight for you,” he said.
“Yes she can,” Obama said of Harris, prompting the boisterous crowd to repeatedly chant the phrase, recalling Obama’s own “Yes we can” campaign slogan.
Before his stardust performance, his wife, Michelle Obama, told convention goers “something magically wonderful is in the air.”
Photo: AFP
“It’s the contagious power of hope,” she said, calling Harris “my girl” and saying that hope — another rallying cry of her husband’s successful 2008 campaign — “is making a comeback.”
His turn amped up the already buoyant mood in Chicago where US President Joe Biden delivered his own emotional speech late on Monday less than a month after ending his re-election bid.
Other featured speakers represented a broad swath of the party — from US Senator Bernie Sanders championing socialist programs to billionaire Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker mocking Trump’s wealth — and business leaders and Republican defectors were given center stage.
With the party united and Harris polling strongly, Democrats are making clear they believe they can defeat Trump.
Comparisons are already being made by Democratic faithful to Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, where a tidal wave of enthusiasm carried him to the White House.
Bullish delegates symbolically nominated Harris as their candidate in a boisterous roll call, following a paper exercise to confirm her as their standard bearer earlier this month.
“Thank you ... see you in two days, Chicago,” she said to delegates via video link from her event in Milwaukee.
Harris, who was received rapturously in the US’ third-largest city at her debut appearance before Biden spoke, traveled to Milwaukee on Tuesday for an event at the basketball arena where Trump attended the Republican National Convention just a month earlier.
The choice of the 18,000-seat arena is likely to rile Trump, who has been rattled that 59-year-old Harris, unlike Biden, is able to draw the kinds of crowds the Republican has long attracted to his events.
Additional reporting by AP
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS