7 Takeaways From Night 3 of Democratic National Convention
Fred Lucas /
On the third night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, delegates looked forward to hearing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accept his party’s nomination for vice president. When he finally did so, it was with a brisk, 17-minute speech that ended just before midnight EDT as Democrats continued to struggle with running late despite a show designed for a national audience.
Delegates in the convention hall also heard highly anticipated speeches from Democrat stars such as former President Bill Clinton and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ late-breaking nominee for president, is set to speak Thursday night, the convention’s last.
After President Joe Biden’s departure from the race last month, Harris will accept the party’s nomination without having received a single primary vote.
Here are some of the biggest highlights from the third night of the DNC, including surprise speaker Oprah Winfrey.
1. Walz Asks Supporters to Do ‘Blocking and Tackling’ to Victory
As part of the Democrats’ bio push of Walz’s stint as an assistant high school football coach, a group of the Minnesota governor’s former players hit the stage wearing their old team jerseys and rallied the crowd before he spoke.
Walz, accepting his nomination as Harris’ pick for vice president, invoked football comparisons to talk about winning the Nov. 5 election.
“It’s the fourth quarter, we’re down a field goal, but we are on offense and we’ve got the ball,” he said. “We’re driving down the field, and boy, do we have the right team.”
“Our job is to get in the trenches and do the blocking and tackling one inch at a time. One yard at a time,” Walz said. “One phone call at a time. One door knock at a time. One $5 donation at a time.”
“We’ve got 76 days,” he said. “That’s nothing. There will be time to sleep when you’re dead. We’re going to leave it on the field.”
At one point, the vice presidential nominee seemed to suggest that the government should be everywhere—except the bedroom.
“Health care and housing are human rights,” Walz said. “And the government stays the hell out of your bedroom. That’s how we make America a place where no child is left hungry. Where no community is left behind.”
The Minnesota governor was among many speakers on Night 3 of the convention who criticized a national movement among parental rights groups to remove sexually explicit books from libraries in K-12 public schools.
Walz compared this issue to providing free lunch and breakfast in Minnesota’s public schools.
“While other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours,” he said.
During his governorship, Walz said, Minnesota enacted paid family and medical leave and spent more on affordable housing and fighting crime.
Walz was governor in 2020 and has faced scrutiny for allowing the violent riots and arson that erupted in Minneapolis that year after the death of George Floyd, a black man, in police custody.
Walz touched only briefly on his 24 years of service with the Army National Guard, amid Republican criticism that he long suggested he went to war in Iraq when he actually left the Guard shortly before his unit deployed there. (In a video before his speech, Walz’s wife Gwen inaccurately said he was a “command sergeant major,” although he didn’t complete requirements for that most senior enlisted rank in an Army unit.)
Walz got emotional as he praised his wife, son, and daughter and talked about how he entered politics.
“There I was, a 40-something high school teacher, [with] little kids, zero political experience, and no money running in a deep red district. But you know what, never underestimate a public school teacher,” Walz said, bringing the crowd to its feet. “I represented my neighbors in Congress for 12 years.”
With him as governor since 2019, Walz said, Minnesota led on abortion.
“We also protected reproductive freedom because in Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and the choices they make,” Walz said.
He said the presidential race was about “freedom,” adding: “Mind your own damn business.”
Critics, however, have castigated Walz for setting up a tip line during the COVID-19 pandemic for neighbors to tell on neighbors who didn’t obey the state’s restrictions.
Walz also touted himself as being more blue collar than his vice presidential opponent, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, who grew up poor in Kentucky and Ohio as the son of a drug-addicted mother but went on to join the Marines after 9/11 and eventually graduate Yale Law School.
Walz, who hit the DNC stage to the rocking strains of John Mellencamp’s “Small Town,” recalled growing up in a Nebraska town with 400 residents.
“I had 24 kids in my high school class and none of them went to Yale,” he said.
2. Pelosi Addresses Delegates After Palace Coup
Delegates enthusiastically welcomed California’s Pelosi, the longtime House speaker who remains a top leader of the Democratic Party, inside United Arena.
Pelosi, 84, is considered most responsible for pushing Biden, 80, to drop out of the presidential race in July—a move that reset the party’s 2024 rematch with former President Donald Trump, a Republican.
Pelosi opened her speech by blasting Trump and heralding both Biden and Harris.
“With the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we established one of the most successful presidencies of modern times,” she said of Jan. 20, 2021.
Pelosi, who rattled off legislation passed during the Biden-Harris administration, praised the president for his work on climate and health policy.
“All thanks to President Biden for bringing us a fairer America, [and] doing so with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Joe,” she said.
The crowd chanted, “Thank you, Joe.”
Pelosi continued by saying: “And I know that Vice President Harris is ready to take us to new heights.”
However, in comments on Biden’s coerced withdrawal published ahead of her DNC address as part of a Wall Street Journal interview, Pelosi was quoted as saying: “Many of us who were concerned about the election wanted to have an open process. It was an open process, anyone could have gotten in.”
Harris, she added in the interview, “had the endorsement of the president, and she, politically astutely, took advantage of it and shut down—not shut down, but won the nomination.”
3. Clinton on Harris and McDonald’s, Biden and George Washington
Bill Clinton repeatedly mispronounced Harris’ first name, Kamala, an offense that some Republicans get shouted down for.
At several points, Clinton pronounced “Kam” as in “can” or “cat.” The “a” sound is properly pronounced as “all” or “caught,” as Harris partisans often insist.
Prior to the former president’s hoarse-sounding speech, pundits on MSNBC repeatedly insisted that anyone who mispronounced Harris’ first name was a racist.
The 42nd president, one of three to be impeached by the House of Representatives, also made an astounding assertion and comparison regarding Biden’s dropping his reelection bid last month amid unsustainable public pressure to do so from other party leaders.
“He did something that’s really hard for a politician to do. He voluntarily gave up political power,” Clinton said of Biden. “George Washington knew that, and he did it. He set the standard for us, serving two terms before it was mandatory. It helped his legacy. And it will enhance Joe Biden’s legacy.”
Even as numerous Democrats publicly called for him to drop out, Biden initially resisted. It was widely reported that Pelosi took the lead role behind the scenes to pressure Biden to exit the race.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reported that former President Barack Obama—whom Biden served as vice president—threatened Biden with the use of the 25th Amendment if he didn’t leave the race. His story has been criticized as thinly sourced, however.
Clinton made a reference to his own well-known love of McDonald’s, which was lampooned on “Saturday Night Live” in the 1990s.
“When she was young, she worked at McDonald’s. And she greeted every person with that thousand-watt smile and said, ‘How can I help you?’” Clinton said of Harris.
“Now she’s at the pinnacle of power. She’s still asking, ‘How can I help you?’ I’ll be so happy when she actually enters the White House as president, because she will break my record as the president who spent the most time at McDonald’s.”
Clinton took several swipes at Trump, another famous fan of McDonald’s.
“The next time you hear him, don’t count the lies. Count the ‘I’s.’ His vendettas, his vengeance, his complaints, his conspiracies. He’s like one of those tenors … singing ‘Me, me, me, me,” Clinton said. “When Kamala Harris is president, every day will begin with you, you, you, you.”
Like Obama during his speech on Night 2, Clinton made no mention of the July 13 attempted assassination of Trump, who also is one of five living former presidents.
4. Hostage’s Parents Speak Amid Anti-Israel Protests Outside Arena
Outside United Arena this week, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protesters marched in the streets, which has been seen as a political liability for Democrats.
The parents of American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin spoke at the convention at a time when the Biden-Harris administration has faced scrutiny from many Democrats over support for longtime U.S. ally Israel after its massive retaliation for the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip.
Hamas terrorists captured 109 hostages, eight of them Americans, while killing 1,200 people, including 45 Americans, in a rampage of rape, torture, and murder.
Rachel Goldberg talked about the hardship of missing her son Hersch for 320 days.
“Since then, we live on another planet,” she told the hall and the nation. “Anyone who is a parent, or who has had a parent, can try to imagine the anguish and misery that John and I and all the hostage families are enduring.”
John Polin, Hersh’s father, said that Biden and Harris were working for a cease-fire deal that included release of the hostages.
“This is a political convention, but needing our only son and all of the cherished hostages home is not a political issue,” Polin said. “It is a humanitarian issue. The families of the eight American hostages meet every week in Washington. We are heartened that both Democratic and Republican leaders demonstrate their bipartisan support for our hostages being released.”
The crowd gave the couple a standing ovation, reportedly including Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who is known for making anti-Israel comments.
5. Oprah: GOP Wants to ‘Rule You’
Veteran talk show host and entrepreneur Oprah Winfrey got the convention hall excited by bashing Republicans before calling for unity.
“There are people who want you to see our country as a nation of us against them,” Winfrey said. “People who want to scare you, who want to rule you.”
Republicans, she said, are “people who believe that books are dangerous and assault rifles are safe.”
Some Republican elected officials have sided with parental rights groups that have sought to remove sexually explicit and even pornographic books from elementary and middle school libraries. Democrats regularly call semiautomatic rifles “assault weapons.”
Winfrey also referred to religion-based objections to same-sex marriage and society’s recent obsession with gender identity.
Many Republicans believe “there is a right way to worship and a wrong way to love,” she said, and are “people who seek first to divide and then to conquer.”
“But here’s the thing: When we stand together, it is impossible to conquer us,” Winfrey said. “In the words of an extraordinary American, the late Congressman John Lewis, he said, ‘No matter what ship our ancestors arrived on, we are all in the same boat now.’”
6. Michigan AG Praises Harris for Not Defending the Law
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel praised Harris’ tenure as California attorney general for an unusual reason: because she chose not to defend a law endorsed by voters.
In a 2008 referendum, California voters approved an amendment to the state Constitution defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
“What really stands out is when she stood up and protected her constitutional freedoms,” Nessel, who is openly lesbian, said of Harris. “In 2011, she refused to defend California’s ban on same-sex marriage. She refused to argue that some families should have fewer rights than other families. It meant a lot. She was fighting for families like mine.”
“In 2022, I faced a similar situation, when Roe v. Wade was overturned [and] Michigan’s archaic abortion ban was resurrected,” Nessel said, noting that she didn’t defend it. “Vice President Harris had my back.”
Nessel said both the California and Michigan laws were scrapped.
The Michigan attorney general roused the crowd to a standing ovation with her next line.
“I got a message for the Republicans and the justices of the United States Supreme Court,” Nessel said. “You can pry this wedding band from my cold, dead, gay hand.”
7. Stevie Wonder Touts Harris and ‘Higher Ground’
Stevie Wonder, a superstar R&B musician since the 1960s, fired up the crowd during prime time.
Before singing, Wonder told the delegates that he has prayed for peace.
“This is the moment to remember when you tell your children where you were and what you did,” Wonder said. “As we stand between history’s pain and tomorrow’s promises, we must choose courage over complacency. It is time to get up and go vote.”
The legendary singer, songwriter, musician, and performer stepped away from the lectern and went to his keyboard, his band behind him.
“Are we ready, because you know we need Kamala Harris, yes, we do,” Wonder said. “And we need a great man and we do have [one] for our future vice president, you know that.”
Before singing, he added: “I’m depending on you to do, as [movie director] Spike Lee would say, the right thing.” (Lee’s films include the breakthrough “Do the Right Thing.”)
Wonder and his band then broke into “Higher Ground,” the musician’s funky 1973 hit.
Ken McIntyre contributed to this report, which was updated throughout the night.