( Democratic National Convention via AP / AP Photo )
Jonathan Capehart, member of The Washington Post editorial board and op-ed columnist, host of the “Cape Up” podcast and an MSNBC contributor, breaks down highlights from the second night of the Democrats’ virtual convention.
[music]
Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. This is the week when, besides the Democratic Convention taking place, so many Americans go off to college or back to college or go back to teach in college, or go back to working in the buildings at colleges. Some schools started even earlier than usual, earlier in August, this year, than today. We see what's starting to happen. Schools like the University of North Carolina and Michigan State and Notre Dame that started in person are already going remote, some of them, because of coronavirus clusters.
Michigan State announced yesterday, they're going remote for the whole first semester. Notre Dame is trying to go remote for just two weeks. Well, hopefully, everybody quarantines and gets it out of Notre Dame's system in 14 days, and then, go back. Good luck with that. Although, if the whole country did that for a couple of months, it might work, but the politics of that won't allow it. The politics is what it is, as the phrase everyone is using now goes. Later this hour, we'll have a call-in for anyone in any college community to report from your campus coronavirus front. That's coming up.
First, we'll begin today with a few excerpts from the Democratic Convention speeches last night. We'll get some thoughts about them from Washington Post columnist, Jonathan Capehart, and from you on the phones. My own opinion, I thought the DNC did very well, in general, with their production values last night. I love the roll call of the 50 states delegations with actual video from all the states and territories. I thought it humanized the presenters more.
We'll have one of them on with us later in the show, Mandela Barnes, the Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin. I'll be very interested to see next week if the Republicans try to do their version of the same thing or if they try to go more live, somehow, because President Trump has been deriving the Democrats pre-tape format. That'll be an interesting contrast next week. Jill Biden's job last night was mostly to draw distinctions between the personal character of her husband and Donald Trump without even saying Donald Trump. She did it, in part, with her own story of becoming a stepmom after Joe's first wife died.
Jill Biden: Motherhood came to me in a way I never expected. I fell in love with a man and two little boys standing in the wreckage of unthinkable loss, mourning a wife and mother, a daughter and sister. I never imagined, at the age of 26, I would be asking myself, "How do you make a broken family whole?" Still, Joe always told the boys, "Mommy sent Jill to us, and how could I argue with her?"
Brian: Jill Biden. Another goal of the convention last night was to argue that the Democrats care about your health care and President Trump doesn't. Now, Democrats generally have an advantage on health care but the contrast is even more stark right now, obviously, because of the pandemic and the President's response to the pandemic. A lot of people are talking about the speech last night by healthcare activist, Ady Barkan, who spoke through a speech-generating device because he lost his own voice box to ALS.
Ady: Even during this terrible crisis, Donald Trump and Republican politicians are trying to take away millions of people's health insurance. With the existential threat of another four years of this president, we all have a profound obligation to act, not only to vote but to make sure that our friends, family, and neighbors vote as well.
Brian: Ady Barkan. Their main theme last night was America's place in the world, and probably most effective in that realm, least to my ear, was the former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman under the first President Bush and Secretary of State under the second President Bush, a hero, especially the many older Americans of both parties. I will let him introduce himself.
Colin: Hi, I'm former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. 100 years ago, a young immigrant left a dirt farm in Jamaica and set out for America. Three years later, a ship pulls into New York Harbor and a young Jamaican woman gazed up at the Statue of Liberty for the first time. They became my parents. They inspired me to finish college and join the army. This began the journey of service that would take me from basic training to combat in Vietnam up the ranks to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State.
The values I learned growing up in the South Bronx and serving in uniform were the same values that Joe Biden's parents instilled in him in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I support Joe Biden for the presidency of the United States because those values still define him, and we need to restore those values to the white house. Our country needs a commander in chief who takes care of our troops in the same way he would his own family. For Joe Biden, that doesn't need teaching. It comes from the experience he shares with millions of military families, sending his beloved son off to war and praying to God he would come home safe.
Brian: That was about foreign policy on one level again about Joe Biden's character and without saying the other guy on the other. There was a Republican from the Bronx, General Colin Powell, popular with older Americans, and there was also the most famous progressive from the Bronx these days, popular with younger Americans, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. For all the chatter beforehand about how she was only being given a minute of speaking time, I thought this felt substantial when it happened, a minute and a half, exactly. As it turned out, still very short, but whether you're a fan or not, she definitely commands your attention and makes you think about what she says.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Good evening. Bienvenidos, and thank you to everyone here today endeavoring towards a better, more just future for our country and our world.
In fidelity and gratitude to a mass people's movement, working to establish 21st century social, economic, and human rights, including guaranteed healthcare, higher education, living wages, and labor rights for all people in the United States, a movement striving to recognize and repair the wounds of racial injustice, colonization, misogyny, and homophobia, and to propose and build re-imagined systems of immigration and foreign policy that turn away from the violence and xenophobia of our past, a movement that realizes the unsustainable brutality of an economy that rewards explosive inequalities of wealth for the few at the expense of long-term stability for the many and who organized a historic grassroots campaign to reclaim our democracy in a time when millions of people in the United States are looking for deep, systemic solutions to our crises of mass evictions, unemployment, and lack of healthcare, in la Espiritu del pueblo and out of love for all people, I hereby second the nomination of Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont for president of the United States of America
Brian: AOC last night. Those were her complete remarks. The relevant context for her and her supporters doing that seconding speech for Bernie Sanders, if you're wondering, by the way, why that even happened, Sanders name got put into nomination because he won delegates in the primaries around the country, and if you watched last night, you heard those delegates being counted by number in the state by state roll call. The person who was chosen to put Joe Biden's name into nomination, as part of literally elevating the voices of essential workers, was a New York City elevator operator named Jacquelyn Brittany, who became a fan of Biden when she carried him up to a meeting in the building of the New York Times.
Jacquelyn Brittany: I take powerful people up on my elevator all the time. When they get off, they go to their important meetings. Me, I just head back to the lobby. In the short time I spent with Joe Biden, I could tell he really saw me, that he actually cared, that my life meant something to him. I knew, even when he went into his important meeting, he'd take my story in there with him. That's because Joe Biden has room in his heart for more than just himself. We've been through a lot and we have tough days ahead, but nominating someone like that to be in the White House is a good place to start. That's why I nominate my friend, Joe Biden, as the next president of the United States.
Brian: Jacquelyn Brittany nominating Joe Biden. Have to pass along a weather alert. This just in from the National Weather Service that a tornado warning has been issued for Monmouth County. Apparently, it's just for the one county, but obviously, a tornado warning means a tornado is likely and potentially imminent for wherever you may be in Monmouth County right now. I'm passing that along. National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for Monmouth County. They say it's in effect until 10:33. How they know it to that exact minute? I don't know. That would be 24 minutes from now, tornado warning in effect in Monmouth County until 10:33.
Listeners, we can take any reactions you had to the Democratic Convention last night. Who moved you? Are you finding the produced format watchable and enjoyable? Do you think they're making their case? Whatever you want to say, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280 with your Democratic Convention night two reactions. With me now is Washington Post columnist, Jonathan Capehart, also host of the podcast, Cape Up. Hi, Jonathan, welcome back to WNYC.
Jonathan: Good morning, Brian. Thanks for having me back.
Brian: I saw that you tweeted about Jacquelyn Brittany, the elevator operator, who put Biden's name into formal nomination. You liked that choice?
Jonathan: It was terrific because as you heard-- I'm glad you played-- I don't know if it was the entirety of her speech-
Brian: Not the whole thing.
Jonathan: - but the clip that you played, here's this person, who never expected that someone in a position of power would not only talk to her but actually see her. It speaks to just the humanity, the empathy, the compassion of Joe Biden. It stands in stark relief to the man who's in the White House now and that is exactly why she was chosen to speak to highlight that, to highlight that clear difference, that clear divide between President Trump and former Vice President Biden.
I think coming a day after the other phenomenal emotional speech, and I'm sure you talked about it yesterday, Kristin Urquiza, who lost her father to COVID, her father is a Trump supporter, and the key devastating line where she said, "My father was a healthy 65-year-old. His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump," devastating testimony, devastating witness against The President. To have her followed by Jacqueline Brittany, followed by whoever's going to be the breakout, stand out, everyday person, tonight and then Thursday night, it's setting up an incredible case, empathetic human case, not just a policy case but a human case against President Trump.
Brian: We'll certainly hear from "regular people" at the Republican Convention next week too. They'll choose theirs to make their cases, victims of street crime in a selected city or whatever it is. It's certainly going to be interesting over the course of the two weeks to see whatever contrast emerges of which "ordinary Americans" the two parties choose to highlight, right?
Jonathan: Right. In fact, that's what I am most interested to see. How does the Republican National Committee do a political convention in the age of COVID? How do they do a convention with a made-for-television president and come-from-television president who thrives on the energy of a crowd? How do they make that work for a president in a time when gathering people in a crowd is dangerous? Already, he's going to be doing his acceptance speech from the White House, which is already a controversial and questionable location and decision, but is he going to flood the South Lawn with thousands of people just so he can hear the applause and hear the laughter and hear the jeering and hear the chance, which is his oxygen? I'm very curious to see how they do that
Then, you raise a very good point, Brian, about the everyday people the Republicans could possibly put forth to tell their stories of trauma and calamity at the hands of various people or institutions. I think one convention is about, surely, trauma when it comes to the pandemic and the economy and hate and xenophobia and racism, but it's also talking about hope and the future and getting beyond this.
If the Republican convention is anything like what we've seen from the Trump administration from the beginning but now on steroids in the age of COVID, what we're going to hear will also be trauma but it is going to be trauma laced with fear and loathing. I think we will see our fair share of white nationalism, white supremacy, racism, xenophobia, and projecting an image of America that is not one that is forward-looking and positive, but one that is crouched in the fetal position of fear.
Brian: Let's take a phone call. Ian in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn wants to react to the presence of Colin Powell, and we played that clip, a part of that speech that he gave last night at the Democratic Convention. Ian, you're on WNYC, thanks so much for calling in.
Ian: Hey, Brian, thanks. It's great to talk to you. You're doing really wonderful work for us. Colin Powell is a war criminal, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. I think that the Democrats, in effect, having the first week of the Republican Convention on their own is not what we need right now. Obama's "bipartisanship" was an attempt to appease the Republican right-wing. That's what brought us Trump, and the Democrats doing the same thing with having speakers like Colin Powell at their convention is going to be a failed attempt at appeasement again. I'm not down for it. I have not been convinced. I am still abstaining, not interested in a Republican-light, not interested at all.
Brian: Ian, thank you very much. Well, a couple of things about that, Jonathan. One, there are still some people out there, and we see it in some of the polls, we talked about this with another guest on yesterday's show, actually, on Monday's show, who are undecided between voting for Democrats and not voting because they see it like that color as Republican-light even now. Then, there's also the question of General Powell's place in history. He has said that he felt duped into supporting the Iraq War by phony intelligence that he got before he made a famous presentation, before the war, at the UN. I don't know. How do you see Colin Powell's place in history and to the other argument that the caller was making about Republican-light?
Jonathan: I'll start with Colin Powell's place in history. Look, if anything that we've learned-- If we've learned anything through the Trump presidency is that history is complicated and the people who make the history are complicated. The indictment that Ian leveled against former Secretary of State Colin Powell, I understand where he's coming from, and I know what the argument is. That's something that history will deal with when it comes to assessing the true legacy of Secretary Powell.
I have to take issue with this notion that the Democratic Party is Republican-light. After everything that we have seen over the last three and a half years, or you want to say five years since the onset of Donald Trump in American politics, to say that you are undecided or that you are abstaining from this election is-- I know I'm going to get in trouble for this. It's highly irresponsible. To not vote in this election is to vote for Donald Trump.
If you care about the direction of this country, about American democracy, about democracy writ large around the world, about the small democratic principles and ideals that have held the international order together for more than 70 years, if you care about the people in the streets protesting for Black lives, protesting against racism, protesting against a president who unleashed federal troops on American citizens on live television and continues to do so around the country, if you truly care about what is happening right now, as we speak, in the streets, in this country, and you want to be in a position to stop it, then, not voting is not the way to go. Looking at the Democratic Party as nothing but "Republican-light" is foolish.
We have been saying since the 2000 Election or 2004 Election, this is the most important presidential race of our lifetimes. Well, the 2020 Presidential Race, I hope, will be the last, most important presidential race in our lifetimes because if Joe Biden and the Democratic Party does not win the White House in 2020 on November 3rd, then, American democracy, democracy around the world, America, as we know it, the America that Ian lives in and that I live in, and we're different, different ends of the democratic spectrum, that America will disappear.
We're always shocked and aghast three and a half years into the Trump administration by what he does, what he says, and then, what he does. Imagine a re-elected President Trump and what he would do and would be able to do with a second term. The reason why Colin Powell and these Republicans, who we've now seen over the last two nights, have been asked to speak, it is not to appeal to Democrats. It is to appeal to those Republicans of conscience who may have voted for Donald Trump for other reasons but who are embarrassed by the man they put into the White House with their vote, and to give them an opportunity and to say, through Colin Powell, through John Kasich, through Cindy McCain, that Joe Biden is a person who is going to save the country from this man.
Brian: Let's take another call. Charles in Manhattan wants to comment on AOC's appearance last night. Charles, you're on WNYC with Jonathan Capehart from The Washington Post. Hi, there.
Charles: Thank you so much, Brian. I just wanted to say that the congresswoman that spoke last night from the Bronx, a lot of people, just in general, aren't very smart. I can learn a few things, but anytime you end your speech with another candidate, like Bernie Sanders, you show them a curve. They want to hear Joe Biden. It's almost like something's being forced down your throat. That's basically all I wanted to say.
Brian: Thank you very much. I get your point. Jonathan, I was watching the AOC part while talking on the phone with a friend, watching the convention at their place. This is what you do in the age of physical distancing, right? You don't get together to watch the convention. "Let's talk on the phone together while watching the convention in our own places." When AOC had ended her speech, I knew because of what I do for a living, that she was there to help put Bernie's name into nomination, but when she ended her speech by saying, "That's why I'm at seconding the nomination of Bernie Sanders," my friend was like, "What? Is she there as a voice of dissent against Joe Biden?", like this caller was. How do you think that came off?
Jonathan: It was a little bit jarring. Again, like you, I know the reason why she was there, to second Bernie Sanders' nomination. I saw it as her laying down a marker by saying, "Right now, I'm behind, we are behind the Biden-Harris ticket. Bernie was our guy and he stood for all these things, and I'm here to second his nomination, but I'm here as a part of this convention for Biden and Harris, to support that ticket, but if/when there is a Biden-Harris administration, I will be right here with Senator Sanders to not only hold the Biden-Harris administration accountable for fixing a lot of the problems but to also be there to push a Biden-Harris administration on policy in a variety of areas."
Actually, that is a good thing because we are going to need, as a country, as much energy and ideas to solve the problems, the myriad problems that this country has that have gone ignored because of the current administration's insular focus from the president on down.
Brian: I saw that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez clarified why that came out the way it did in an Instagram story last night, the same thing we've been clarifying here. I guess she felt the need to say, "Here's the context folks," on Instagram. She's got like six million Instagram followers, so a lot of people would have seen that., Her followers probably already want her to hold the Biden administration's feet to the fire in the way you were just describing, assuming Biden gets elected.
Jonathan, not to do a buzzkill for Democrats feeling all warm and fuzzy after last night, remember, this is a competition between the two parties, nothing goes unanswered. Here is a 30-second taste of what we'll probably hear long-form from the Republicans next week, as former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, reacted to last night's DNC presentations in the 11:00 PM hour on Fox.
Mike Huckabee: If America was electing somebody to be nice, they would elect Jill Biden. She would be the better Biden to be on the ballot, but that's not what this is about. This is about very serious policies that determine the future of our country. If you like the idea of open borders, bigger taxes, more statism government control of your lives, abortion funded by the taxpayers, if you'd like us surrendering to China at every turn so the multinational corporations will be happy and keep putting baksheesh in the hands of politicians, then, the Democrats are your choice. That's what you should do.
Brian: Mike Huckabee on Fox last night with a Republican response. Obviously, we'll be hearing democratic responses to the Republican Convention next week, but Jonathan Capehart gamed this out for us a little bit. What's the compare and contrast messages you think people will be coming away with after the full two weeks of this?
Jonathan: I'm glad you played a former Governor Huckabee and what he said because he sort of articulated what I said at the beginning of our conversation. Everything he said there, politically, I can understand. A lot of it is rooted in conservative ideology, but it's all rooted in fear and loathing. If that is a taste of what we're going to see next week, then, after four days of fear and loathing, I'm not sure an America that has been cooped up inside since March or late February depending on when your particular city or state decided to lock down and a country that is worried about the future, both in terms of the pandemic but the economy and just society, the American people are scared. When people are scared and frightened, they are always looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. What we're seeing over these four days is a recognition of that fear, but also, people pointing to the light at the end of the tunnel.
That Mike Huckabee clip that you just played is nothing but fear. There's no light at the end of the tunnel, there's no conversation, at least in that Mike Huckabee clip, about how we get past this point together as a nation that doesn't rely on racism, doesn't rely on xenophobia, doesn't rely on misogyny, doesn't rely on us versus them, but is emphasized by we, the people. By the end of next week, I hope that the choice is extra clear and that both parties make their case and that the obvious choice for the American people will be made clear.
Brian: I know you've got to go in a minute. Tonight, Barack Obama speaks, Kamala Harris speaks. You wrote a column called, "Why Biden's elevation of Kamala Harris puts a lump in my throat." "I see someone who reflects the work twice as hard, values I was raised with, and the tight rope demeanor demanded of a Black person navigating white spaces that I have had to learn," you wrote. Want to elaborate on that a little bit before you go to set up tonight?
Jonathan: Representation matters. I know there are people on the right who think that squishy and being “politically correct” and maybe even snowflakey, but when you're a person of color or a member of a marginalized community, where you are not used to seeing people who either look like you or reflect your life as you live it, to see someone in the public eye or in a position of power, it is breathtaking and it can be overwhelming. It's also something that makes you incredibly proud, not just of that person but of yourself and what you've done and what you've been able to accomplish. It's a validation of who you are as a person and as a community.
For Kamala Harris, this daughter of immigrants, to rise up from her own family's humble beginnings, which is a quintessential American story, to rise to the position that she's in right now and to rise to a position of power that I and millions of other people hope she and Joe Biden rise to, it is awe-inspiring. It is something that I think, again, to my last answer, to look at Biden and Harris but especially Harris, in this moment, they are the light at the end of the tunnel.
Brian: Washington Post columnist, Jonathan Capehart, also, host of the podcast, Cape Up. Jonathan-
Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.
New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.