DNC: States officially nominate Biden for president in roll call, as AOC backs Sanders in 90-second speech
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Joe Biden was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate on Tuesday night after an improved virtual Zoom convention saw former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, along with establishment political figures Colin Powell and John Kerry, unite behind the former VP to take on Donald Trump in November.
The progressive wing of the party, however, delivered a snub as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez didn't mention Biden during her nomination of Bernard Sanders for the candidacy.
The night focused on Jill Biden, who said her husband would fight for the soul of America with the same grit he showed following the death of their son from cancer.
Donald Trump wasn't silent during the convention, lashing out at the DNC after Bill Clinton placed responsibility for the US's coronavirus cases on the "chaos in the oval office".
"Tell the Dems that we have more Cases because we do FAR more Testing than any other Country!" Trump said in a tweet just as the former president finished up his remarks.
Clinton wasn't the only former president shipping for Biden, however, with 95-year-old Jimmy Carter making his first appearance at a Democrat convention in eight years.
Biden was Carter's "first and most effective" supporter in the Senate during the 1976 presidential campaign, and his character and decency was best for the American people.
Biden's character and decency was placed in stark contrast to Trump throughout the event, with Powell saying those personality traits would restore America's leadership and moral authority after four years of what Kerry said has been a blooper reel of incoherent foreign policy.
Former acting US attorney general Sally Yates, meanwhile, was less colorful in her assessment of the president's actions, saying he "trampled the rule trying to weaponize our Justice Department to attack his enemies."
Called it - Trump references ratings in first few minutes of his campaign stop in Arizona
In a surprise to no one, Trump kicked off his campaign speech in Arizona referencing the ratings flop of last night's convention.
"At last night's Democrat convention, which by the way got very bad ratings I have to tell you," Trump said.
"Unity, they talk about unity, they want to bring unity and then you listen to Michelle Obama's speech, which was obsolete by the time it got there, she taped it."
Cindy McCain video on Joe Biden to air at DNC
Cindy McCain is going to bat for Joe Biden, lending her voice to a video set to air during Tuesday night's Democratic National Convention programming focused on Biden's close friendship with her late husband, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
She's just the latest Republican to join in the convention, after a number of notable GOP former elected officials -- including former Ohio Gov. John Kasich -- endorsed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee on Monday night. It's a continuation of a major theme that Democrats have pushed through the first night of the convention -- an effort to broaden the party's appeal to occasional Republicans and disaffected Trump voters.
In an advance clip from the video shared with The Associated Press, Cindy McCain talks about how Biden, then a Delaware senator, met her husband when John McCain was assigned to be a military aide for him on a trip overseas. The two became friends, and the families would gather for picnics in the Bidens' backyard.
"They would just sit and joke. It was like a comedy show, sometimes, to watch the two of them," she says in the clip.
Associated Press
FACT CHECK: "They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages" -- Michelle Obama
FALSE: "The reference to cages is misleading and a matter that Democrats have persistently distorted."
At his campaign rally in Arizona today Trump hit back against the "children in cages" story that Michelle Obama used in her speech during the Democratic convention on Monday night.
"We never built the cages, they were built by Obama and the fake news is constantly saying I built the cages for children, I didn't build them, they were built in 2014," Trump said moments ago.
The former first lady used her speech to make a moral case against Donald Trump, repeating the line "that children are torn from their families and thrown in cages".
The Associated Press, whose wire photos instigated the original "kids in cages" outrage, fact-checked Ms Obama on this after her speech, saying prominent Democrats have continued to cite cages for children as distinctive cruelty of Trump.
In fact, they said, the "cages" were built by her husband's administration for the same purposes of temporarily holding migrant children.
"Trump used facilities that were built during the Obama-Biden administration to house children at the border. They are chain-link enclosures inside border facilities where migrants were temporarily housed, separated by sex and age," AP wrote.
"At the height of the controversy over Trump's zero-tolerance policy at the border, photos that circulated online of children in the enclosures generated great anger. But those photos -- by The Associated Press -- were taken in 2014 and depicted some of the thousands of unaccompanied children held by President Barack Obama."
"When that fact came to light, some Democrats and activists who had tweeted the photos deleted their tweets. But prominent Democrats have continued to cite cages for children as a distinctive cruelty of Trump."
Secret weapon: Why Jill Biden is such an effective campaigner for her husband Joe
From The Independent's Andrew Buncombe in Davenport.
She says she knows the candidate better than anyone else. He likes to say he "married up".
Jill and Joe Biden have been married for 43 years, and during his time as both a senator and vice president, she continued to work, most recently as a professor of English at a community college. It provided a real-world, outside of the White House bubble perspective, people say was invaluable.
So when the 77-year-old Mr Biden called a raft of ex-senators, members of the House, and others, to head to both Iowa and New Hampshire to campaign for him and act as "surrogates", nobody's dispatch was important than that of his wife.
She has acted as an energetic, morale-boosting visitor to remote campaign offices, far from the state capitals. And because of who she is, she has said things about him and his campaign, other surrogates might not feel so free to express.
Last year in New Hampshire, she told told supporters of others candidates, to "swallow a little bit" and vote for her husband, because he had a better chance of defeating Donald Trump.
Read the full story.
Meanwhile, at the Republican convention: Kentucky student Nick Sandmann is expected to speak next week
A Kentucky teenager seen in a viral video last year wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat during a reported incident with a Native American elder will speak at the upcoming Republican National Convention.
Nicholas Sandmann confirmed he would speak at the four-day event next week in a tweet, writing: "I can't tell you all enough about how excited I am to be apart [sic] of this years RNC!"
He became part of a national news cycle after a viral video showed him standing close to Nathan Phillips, a 66-year-old Native American activist, as he sang a chant near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
Chris Riotta reports.
UNITY 2020 -- the other, other, other party contesting the US election
After the first night of the Democratic convention drew mixed reviews from a seemingly underwhelming virtual audience, another party has stepped in to rustle up some enthusiasm for the polling booths in November.
Nope, it's not the Kanye West-Michelle Tidball ticket. Or the Libertarian Party.
It's the radical Unity party, which is running on the basic premise of "Not Trump, Not Biden". The plan is to reclaim the middle by drafting one candidate from the centre-left, and one from the centre-right, and have them govern together as a team.
They've been eyeing Andrew Yang on the left and retired Admiral William McRaven on the right, though they're quickly running out of time to get on the ballot. The top of the ticket would be decided by a coin toss, and then after four years the president and vice president would switch roles for a re-election campaign.
And, yes, they know it sounds crazy, as admitted in this new campaign video that dropped just hours ahead of the second night of the Democratic convention.
"Is it crazy? Yeah, but it's the right kind of crazy," they say. "If this stupid year has taught us anything, it's that we have no idea what is possible."
ICYMI: 'Trump has no idea how to run a business': Billionaire Meg Whitman leads Republicans speaking out against president at DNC
Billionaire Meg Whitman was among four Republicans to endorse Joe Biden for president on the opening day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC).
The DNC is taking place online this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and in a pre-recorded segment on Monday Ms Whitman shared her support for the presumptive Democratic nominee.
The 64-year-old businesswoman said: "I'm a longtime Republican and a longtime CEO. And let me tell you, Donald Trump has no clue how to run a business, let alone an economy.
"Joe Biden, on the other hand, has a plan that will strengthen our economy for working people and small-business owners. For me, the choice is simple. I'm with Joe."
The current CEO of short-form streaming platform Quibi was one of four Republicans who spoke at the convention on Monday in support of Mr Biden and against president Donald Trump, according to the Los Angeles Times.
James Crump reports.
Kanye West qualifies as presidential candidate in Utah
Kanye West has qualified as a presidential candidate in Utah after receiving 1,000 signatures from registered voters.
The rapper will appear on the state's ballot in November as an unaffiliated presidential candidate, an election official said on Monday.
Utah State Elections also confirmed the presidential bid on Twitter, announcing Mr West on the list of candidates filed with the office.
State Elections Director, Justin Lee, said that Mr West's campaign received the necessary 1,000 signatures from registered voters required to appear on the Utah ballot.
Louise Hall reports.
Trump claims he has 'never heard of' ex-Homeland Security chief who called him 'terrifying' and endorsed Biden
Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday that he has "never heard of" the former senior administration official who endorsed Joe Biden and called the president "terrifying".
Miles Taylor, former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief of staff under Kirstjen Nielsen, became one of the highest-ranking former administration officials to endorse the president's rival on Monday, featuring in a scathing attack ad.
Mr Trump hit back against the comments following the first night of the Democratic National Convention, calling Mr Taylor a "disgruntled employee" and insisting that he had never heard of him.
"Many thousands of people work for our government," the president wrote on Twitter.
Mr Taylor claimed that the president wanted to "restart" the practice of separating children from their families at the US-Mexico border following the termination of the widely-denounced strategy in 2018, among a number of allegations.
Louise Hall reports.
ICYMI: When Bernie Sanders makes a speech like he just did at the DNC, you know things have gotten bad
For Independent Voices, Holly Baxter compares Bernie Sanders' speeches in 2016 and 2020. Catch up on last night's speaker before tuning into Bill Clinton and Jill Biden tonight.
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