Tearful US President Joe Biden gets rousing ovation at Democratic National Convention
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00:00In other news, U.S. President Joe Biden received a hero's welcome as he closed out the first
00:04night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
00:07The speech by the 81-year-old effectively saw him pass the baton on to his vice president
00:12as Kamala Harris gears up to take on Donald Trump in November.
00:17Biden said he made a whole lot of mistakes during his career, but he told Americans he
00:21gave his best to them.
00:26She's tough, she's experienced, and she has enormous integrity, enormous integrity.
00:34Her story represents the best American story.
00:39And like many of our best presidents, she was also vice president.
00:46Looking out at everyone tonight, I see the beauty of our great nation.
00:53People from every corner of our country and every walk of life are here, united by our
01:00shared vision for the future of our country.
01:04And this November, we will come together and declare with one voice, as one people, we
01:11are moving forward.
01:16We can bring in our chief foreign editor, Rob Parsons.
01:18Rob, this was a very moving night for Joe Biden.
01:21This was a president who had it in him to do another four years, but had to put the
01:25country first because of his age.
01:27Well, I'm not sure he had it in him to do another four years.
01:31That was really the problem, that physically, although the mental will was there, physically
01:35he clearly didn't.
01:38Remember that debate he had with Donald Trump, and that's where everything started to crumble
01:43for him and the pressure started to grow for him to step down.
01:48This speech today should have been about him, it was planned to be, about him taking the
01:55next step towards the presidency.
01:58Instead, it was a speech summarizing the 50 years of his political career and passing
02:06the baton on to Kamala Harris.
02:09And interestingly, his wife, who spoke there, recalled that he had had to dig deep into
02:17his soul to make that decision, but he had made that decision because it was the right
02:21one in the interest of the country, in the interest of the Democratic Party.
02:26And he got roundly applauded for it.
02:30Interestingly, too, this is a Joe Biden who sounded quite confident, who sounded relatively
02:37at ease on the stage.
02:39He wasn't stumbling at all.
02:40He wasn't the man that we saw in debate with Donald Trump, who could barely put two words
02:45together at times.
02:48This is a man who was really strongly defending his record as president and paving the way
02:54for Kamala Harris, who he referred to as being the best, his appointment of her as vice president
03:01is the best decision he ever made in his political career, that she was honest, she was tough,
03:07she was experienced, and that she would take the fight to Donald Trump, a man with 34 felonies
03:14that as a prosecutor, he would, she would deal with him.
03:18I mean, I was just looking at the images of Biden speaking to Harris that clearly he has
03:23a lot of respect for his pick.
03:25Now, on day one of the DNC, Rob, we had senior figures from the Democratic Party, including
03:30Hillary Clinton, who spoke, obviously, she was unsuccessful in her bid for the presidency.
03:36But we also had figures on the left, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, signaling
03:41she could be the future of the Democratic Party.
03:44Take a listen to what she had to say.
03:46In Kamala Harris, we have a chance to elect a president who is for the middle class, because
03:53she is from the middle class.
03:58She understands the urgency of rent checks and groceries and prescriptions.
04:04And Chicago, we have to help her win.
04:09Because we know that Donald Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining
04:16his own pockets and greasing the palms of his Wall Street friends.
04:21There you have it, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, far on the left of the Democratic Party, signaling
04:29that there's a whole lot of unity there in Chicago.
04:31Yeah, and it was interesting.
04:32I mean, this is the Democratic Party coming together.
04:37During the last election, the last election, there was a lot of division in the Democratic
04:41Party.
04:42A lot of people would have preferred Bernie Sanders to go forward from the left.
04:47It didn't happen, of course.
04:49But this time round, there isn't, doesn't appear to be that division.
04:52They recognize just how dangerous the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency is and how important
04:59it is to make sure that all strands of the Democratic Party are on board and in support
05:05of Kamala Harris.
05:07And we saw there Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who's not just on the left, but the younger
05:11generation, 34 years old.
05:14She's obviously got a long career ahead of her in the Democratic Party, but coming solidly
05:18behind Kamala Harris, praising the work that she has done on Gaza, for instance, which
05:24is an area in which one might have expected her to actually attack Kamala Harris in this
05:29administration, but chose not to.
05:31But also talking about the work she does for women in particular, gender rights, abortion,
05:37and defending the interests of the middle class, pointing a finger at the same time
05:43at the failings of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
05:47But you mentioned to others, like Hillary Clinton, who came so close in her presidential
05:54bid in 2016 to breaking that glass ceiling for the first, to become the first female
06:00president of the United States, but just managing to crack it.
06:04Although she got more votes than Donald Trump, she didn't actually win the election.
06:08Now she's saying the moment has come.
06:10We have to get behind Kamala Harris.
06:12She's the woman who's going to break that glass ceiling and take things forward for
06:17women.
06:18So the whole party coming together, you know, we saw it in the way that the younger generation
06:22at the convention were cheering Joe Biden as well, holding up signs saying, we love
06:29Joe.
06:31And all that sort of thing.
06:32So we'll see how the convention pans out.
06:34We still have another three days to go.
06:36Thank you very much for that, Rob Parsons.