Convention Day 2: Obama Says Election Is About ‘Who Will Fight for You’

Salud Hits Trump–Vance for 'Insults' to Military

By Jerry Roberts Wed Aug 21, 2024 | 08:38am

This story first appeared at Newsmakers with JR.

Rep. Salud Carbajal on Tuesday swiped at Donald Trump as a draft dodger and denounced his Republican running mate JD Vance’s “insults to all veterans” — saying the two demonstrated that Democrats are the legitimate pro-military party.

Santa Barbara’s Man in Congress checked in from Chicago, where he arrived too late on Monday night for President Biden’s extended speech to the Democratic National Convention (no truth to the rumor Biden was still speaking on Tuesday afternoon).

Salud said, however, he’d already attended half a dozen convention caucuses, conferences, and roundtables, where he found delegates, activists, and volunteers “energized like we haven’t seen in previous elections.”

“I think there’s always a concern of being overconfident, but I think the momentum is there,” he told Newsmakers in a Zoom interview.

“The momentum keeps rising, and when you consider the contrast, that’s really what’s fueling this,” he added. “The contrast is that we have a convicted felon, a very old individual who’s running on the other side, who, instead of focusing on policy, is focusing on silly things, identity issues, culture wars, not about taking us forward. “

Carbajal said that part of the campaign contrast emerged from recent controversial comments by Trump and Vance about the military and veterans. Trump, who during his first term described service members killed in combat as “suckers and losers,” this week said the President’s Medal of Freedom, a civilian award, was “much better” than the Congressional Medal of Honor, given for heroism in battle; Vance meanwhile has harshly attacked the military record of Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, who served 24 years in the Minnesota National Guard.

“Who claims that a civilian Medal of Freedom issued by a president — to one of his donors — is more important than the Medal of Honor, given to those that have sacrificed their lives or lost a limb for fighting for our democracy and our country? Somebody who’s dodged the draft because of bone spurs, somebody who doesn’t appreciate what true patriotism is or means.”

What Obama said. Salud spoke with us a few hours before former President Barack Obama addressed the convention, delivering a masterful, nuanced address that wove high praise for Biden, deft tweaks for Trump, and an ardent endorsement of Harris, providing a clear pivot from the backward-looking rhetoric of Monday to the future vision that the Democratic nominees have the opportunity to offer in the next two nights of the convention.

It was at once a partisan oration and a thoughtful cultural diagnosis of the harsh political polarization afflicting America, as he returned to themes of decency, civility and communitarianism that first surfaced when he emerged as a star while delivering the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention, before becoming the party’s nominee just four years later.

“My first decision as your nominee turned out to be one of my best — and that was asking Joe Biden to be my vice president,” Obama said, praising the president’s “empathy decency and hard-earned resilience.”

Of Trump’s presidency, he offered: “We have all seen that movie before. And we know that the sequel is usually worse.”

“The torch has been passed,” the former president said of Harris’s candidacy, saying that she would “sign a law to guarantee every woman the right to make her own health care decisions.”

The central question of the election, he told delegates, is, “Who will fight for me?”

“One thing is for certain, Donald Trump is not losing sleep about that question,” Obama said, while Harris, by contrast, “won’t just worry about her problems; she’ll be focused on yours.”

But the former president also urged Democrats to help cool the anger and hatred animating U.S. politics: “Politicians and algorithms encourage us to caricature each other and troll each other and fear each other,” he said. “Our fellow citizens deserve the same grace we hope they’ll extend to us.”

Earlier in the evening, delegates meeting at the United Center went through the colorful exercise of formally designating Harris and Walz as their ticket, aided by, um, an L.A. deejay, essentially closing the book on Biden, who stepped away several weeks ago under intense behind-the-scenes pressure from former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other party leaders. Gov. Gavin Newsom, speaking for the California delegation, delivered the final votes for Harris, a longtime political frenemy.

The convention last night also heard emotional speeches from Harris’s husband, “Second Gentleman” Doug Emhoff, and former First Lady Michelle Obama, as well as Stephanie Grisham, Trump’s former press secretary, who disavowed her former boss.

“He has no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth,” she said. “He used to tell me, ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie — say it enough and people will believe you.’ But it does matter — what you say matters, and what you don’t say matters.”

Salud looks at the race. In our conversation with Carbajal, who served in the Marine Reserve, he also sharply criticized Vance for his calumny about Walz’s service,

“I was angry and appalled, to be honest with you,” he told us. “It’s an insult to all veterans when [Vance] says that, to not appreciate Governor Walz’s service, is ridiculous.

“Governor Walz served honorably, and it’s silly that a veteran would try to demagogue another veteran … it’s totally unfounded.”

In other convention-related matters, Carbajal:

Said the U.S. “economy is roaring,” accepting Biden’s claim on Monday night that the nation has “the world’s greatest economy.” But he quickly added that he understood that working and middle-class families, struggling with “global inflation,” might not agree; “It’s one of those juxtapositions where it’s true, the United States economy is one of the strongest economies in our world today, but people are still reeling from those realities of increased prices.”
Described the key contrast between Harris and Trump as generational: “Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are talking about the future, and how we hope to continue to make this country the great place that it is by continuing to invest in people, to make sure that we’re investing in our society in a way that keeps moving us forward, an inclusive society, not one that divides us, not one that looks at segments of our communities and our country in a derogatory way, but rather is trying to unite us.”
Characterized as a “distraction” a new Republican House committee report, accusing Biden of “impeachable offenses.” “I think it’s baseless. It’s a distraction to take away from the fact that Kamala Harris is skyrocketing. It’s their way to distracting and trying to beat down President Biden because he had such negative numbers, and they want to fixate on that to try to get the American people to focus on that instead of the issues at hand.”

Check out our conversation with Salud Carbajal via YouTube by clicking this link. The podcast version is here.