Good evening, everyone.
It's a hard time, and everyone's feeling it in different ways.
And I know a lot of folks are reluctant to tune
into a political convention right now
or to politics in general.
Believe me, I get that.
But I am here tonight because I love this country
with all my heart,
and it pains me to see so many people hurting.
I've met so many of you.
I've heard your stories.
And through you, I have seen this country's promise.
And thanks to so many who came before me,
thanks to their toil and sweat and blood,
I've been able to live that promise myself.
That's the story of America.
All those folks who sacrificed and overcame so much
in their own times because they wanted something more,
something better for their kids.
There's a lot of beauty in that story.
There's a lot of pain in it, too,
a lot of struggle and injustice and work left to do.
And who we choose as our president in this election
will determine whether or not we honor that struggle
and chip away at that injustice and keep alive
the very possibility of finishing that work.
I am one of a handful of people living today
who have seen firsthand the immense weight
and awesome power of the presidency.
And let me once again tell you this.
The job is hard.
It requires clear-headed judgment,
a mastery of complex and competing issues,
a devotion to facts and history, a moral compass,
and an ability to listen.
And an abiding belief that each of the 330 million
lives in this country has meaning and worth.
A president's words have the power to move markets.
They can start wars or broker peace.
They can summon our better angels
or awaken our worst instincts.
You simply cannot fake your way through this job.
As I've said before,
being president doesn't change who you are.
It reveals who you are.
Well, a presidential election can reveal who we are, too.
And four years ago, too many people chose to believe
that their votes didn't matter.
Maybe they were fed up.
Maybe they thought the outcome wouldn't be close.
Maybe the barriers felt too steep.
Whatever the reason.
In the end, those choices sent someone to the Oval Office
who lost the national popular vote by nearly 3 million votes.
In one of the states that determined the outcome,
the winning margin averaged out to just two votes per precinct.
Two votes.
And we've all been living with the consequences.
When my husband left office with Joe Biden at his side,
we had a record-breaking stretch of job creation.
We'd secured the right to health care for 20 million people.
We were respected around the world,
rallying our allies to confront climate change.
And our leaders had worked hand-in-hand with scientists
to help prevent an Ebola outbreak
from becoming a global pandemic.
Four years later, the state of this nation is very different.
More than 150,000 people have died,
and our economy is in shambles because of a virus
that this president downplayed for too long.
It has left millions of people jobless.
Too many have lost their health care.
Too many are struggling
to take care of basic necessities like food and rent.
Too many communities have been left in the lurch to grapple
with whether and how to open our schools safely.
Internationally, we've turned our back,
not just on agreements forged by my husband,
but on alliances championed by presidents
like Reagan and Eisenhower.
And here at home, as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor,
and a never-ending list of innocent people of color
continue to be murdered, stating the simple fact
that a Black life matters is still met
with derision from the nation's highest office.
Because whenever we look to this White House for some leadership
or consolation or any semblance of steadiness,
what we get instead is chaos, division,
and a total and utter lack of empathy.
Empathy.
That's something I've been thinking a lot about lately.
The ability to walk in someone else's shoes.
The recognition that someone else's experience
has value, too.
Most of us practice this without a second thought.
If we see someone suffering or struggling,
we don't stand in judgment.
We reach out because,
"There, but for the grace of God, go I."
It is not a hard concept to grasp.
It's what we teach our children.
And like so many of you, Barack and I have tried our best
to instill in our girls a strong moral foundation
to carry forward the values
that our parents and grandparents poured into us.
But right now, kids in this country are seeing what happens
when we stop requiring empathy of one another.
They're looking around wondering if we've been lying to them
this whole time about who we are and what we truly value.
They see people shouting in grocery stores,
unwilling to wear a mask to keep us all safe.
They see people calling the police
on folks minding their own business
just because of the color of their skin.
They see an entitlement
that says only certain people belong here,
that greed is good, and winning is everything
because as long as you come out on top,
it doesn't matter what happens to everyone else.
And they see what happens when that lack of empathy
is ginned up into outright disdain.
They see our leaders labeling fellow citizens
enemies of the state
while emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists.
They watch in horror as children are torn from their families
and thrown into cages,
and pepper spray and rubber bullets
are used on peaceful protestors for a photo-op.
Sadly, this is the America that is on display
for the next generation.
A nation that's underperforming not simply on matters of policy
but on matters of character.
And that's not just disappointing.
It's downright infuriating.
Because I know the goodness and the grace that is out there
in households and neighborhoods all across this nation.
And I know that regardless of our race, age,
religion, or politics, when we close out the noise
and the fear and truly open our hearts,
we know that what's going on in this country is just not right.
This is not who we want to be.
So what do we do now?
What's our strategy?
Over the past four years, a lot of people have asked me,
"When others are going so low, does going high
still really work?"
My answer -- going high is the only thing that works,
because when we go low,
when we use those same tactics of degrading
and dehumanizing others, we just become part of the ugly noise
that's drowning out everything else.
We degrade ourselves.
We degrade the very causes for which we fight.
But let's be clear.
Going high does not mean putting on a smile
and saying nice things
when confronted by viciousness and cruelty.
Going high means taking the harder path.
It means scraping and clawing our way to that mountain top.
Going high means standing fierce against hatred
while remembering that we are one nation under God,
and if we want to survive,
we've got to find a way to live together
and work together across our differences.
And going high means unlocking the shackles of lies
and mistrust with the only thing that can truly set us free --
the cold hard truth.
So let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can.
Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country.
He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job,
but he is clearly in over his head.
He cannot meet this moment.
He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us.
It is what it is.
Now, I understand that my message
won't be heard by some people.
We live in a nation that is deeply divided,
and I am a Black woman speaking at the Democratic Convention.
But enough of you know me by now.
You know that I tell you exactly what I'm feeling.
You know I hate politics.
But you also know that I care about this nation.
You know how much I care about all of our children.
So if you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this.
If you think things cannot possibly get worse,
trust me, they can --
and they will if we don't make a change in this election.
If we have any hope of ending this chaos,
we have got to vote for Joe Biden
like our lives depend on it.
I know Joe.
He is a profoundly decent man, guided by faith.
He was a terrific vice president.
He knows what it takes to rescue an economy,
beat back a pandemic, and lead our country.
And he listens.
He will tell the truth and trust science.
He will make smart plans and manage a good team.
And he will govern as someone who's lived a life
that the rest of us can recognize.
When he was a kid, Joe's father lost his job.
When he was a young senator,
Joe lost his wife and his baby daughter.
And when he was vice president, he lost his beloved son.
So Joe knows the anguish of sitting at a table
with an empty chair,
which is why he gives his time so freely to grieving parents.
Joe knows what it's like to struggle,
which is why he gives his personal phone number
to kids overcoming a stutter of their own.
His life is a testament to getting back up,
and he is going to channel that same grit and passion
to pick us all up,
to help us heal and guide us forward.
Now, Joe is not perfect.
And he'd be the first to tell you that.
But there is no perfect candidate,
no perfect president.
And his ability to learn and grow,
we find in that the kind of humility and maturity
that so many of us yearn for right now.
Because Joe Biden has served this nation his entire life
without ever losing sight of who he is.
But more than that, he has never lost sight of who we are,
all of us.
Joe Biden wants all of our kids to go to a good school,
see a doctor when they're sick, live on a healthy planet.
And he's got plans to make all of that happen.
Joe Biden wants all of our kids, no matter what they look like,
to be able to walk out the door
without worrying about being harassed or arrested or killed.
He wants all of our kids to be able to go
to a movie or a math class
without being afraid of getting shot.
He wants all our kids to grow up with leaders
who won't just serve themselves and their wealthy peers
but will provide a safety net for people facing hard times.
And if we want a chance to pursue any of these goals,
any of these most basic requirements
for a functioning society, we have to vote for Joe Biden
in numbers that cannot be ignored.
Because right now, folks who know they cannot
win fair and square at the ballot box
are doing everything they can to stop us from voting.
They're closing down polling places
in minority neighborhoods.
They're purging voter rolls.
They're sending people out to intimidate voters,
and they're lying about the security of our ballots.
These tactics are not new.
But this is not the time to withhold our votes in protest
or play games with candidates who have no chance of winning.
We have got to vote like we did in 2008 and 2012.
We've got to show up with the same level of passion
and hope for Joe Biden.
We've got to vote early, in person if we can.
We've got to request our mail-in ballots right now,
tonight, and send them back immediately and follow-up
to make sure they're received.
And then make sure our friends and families do the same.
We have got to grab our comfortable shoes,
put on our masks, pack a brown-bag dinner
and maybe breakfast, too,
because we've got to be willing to stand in line
all night if we have to.
Look, we have already sacrificed so much this year.
So many of you are already going that extra mile.
Even when you're exhausted,
you're mustering up unimaginable courage
to put on those scrubs
and give our loved ones a fighting chance.
Even when you're anxious, you're delivering those packages,
stocking those shelves,
and doing all that essential work
so that all of us can keep moving forward.
Even when it all feels so overwhelming,
working parents are somehow piecing it
all together without child care.
Teachers are getting creative
so that our kids can still learn and grow.
Our young people are desperately
fighting to pursue their dreams.
And when the horrors of systemic racism
shook our country and our consciences,
millions of Americans of every age,
every background rose up to march for each other,
crying out for justice and progress.
This is who we still are.
Compassionate, resilient,
decent people whose fortunes are bound up with one another.
And it is well past time for our leaders
to once again reflect our truth.
So it is up to us to add our voices
and our votes to the course of history,
echoing heroes like John Lewis who said,
"When you see something that is not right,
you must say something.
You must do something."
That is the truest form of empathy.
Not just feeling, but doing.
Not just for ourselves or our kids,
but for everyone, for all our kids.
And if we want to keep the possibility of progress
alive in our time,
if we want to be able to look our children in the eye
after this election,
we have got to reassert our place in American history.
And we have got to do everything we can to elect
my friend Joe Biden
as the next president of the United States.
Thank you all.
God bless.