Highlights and analysis of Kamala Harris’ speech on the final day of the 2024 DNC

Jacob Soboroff speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

This felt like a convention about neighbors, friends and family, whereas — and this is no secret, I’ve said it many times before — the Republican Convention was straight-up deeply disturbing. 

There was one moment at that convention that made that crystal clear and that was thousands of people holding up signs that said "mass deportations now."

The Republican Party’s platform literally consists of removing over 10 million people from the United States of America, many of whom are our neighbors, our friends and our families. 

Both conventions talked about neighbors, friends and family. The Republicans said we want to remove millions of them from this country in a deportation effort with a magnitude bigger than the 1954 operation run by Dwight D. Eisenhower, with the name so racist and so offensive I don’t think it’s appropriate to say on television. The Republicans were proud of that.

At the end of that convention, I remember standing in front of the stage with balloons bouncing off my head and it just felt bizarre, like we were in a bizarro world where they were having a party while we talked about kicking out people who are the fabric of the United States of America. 

Here you looked at the stage and that looked like a family. That’s the fabric of the United States of America.

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Jen Psaki speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

This was joyful. It was full of love. People watching were like, where has that amazing person been for the last couple of years? That's a lot of what I’m getting in text messages from right now.

But it's also the biggest moment to remind the American public that this is ultimately still an election where Kamala Harris is running against Donald Trump. 

That’s part of why there's this big coalition of current Republicans, former Republicans, sheriffs, people who don’t normally come to these things because this election is not the norm.

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One line that stands out in re-reading the speech captures a key difference between Harris’ vision of America and Trump’s.

Telling the story of how her single mother relied on neighbors and friends to help raise her and her sister, Harris said these aunts and uncles were “none of them, family by blood, and all of them, family by love.”

Trump has also referenced “blood,” notably saying in December that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” a line that uncomfortably echoed the “blood and soil” rhetoric of white supremacists.

Harris has also represented her vision through her own family, which includes two stepchildren, and her calls for the protection of the rights of of LGBTQ families.

Symone Sanders-Townsend speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

For this current Republican party apparatus, the culture wars are not just a distraction: they are the playbook. Donald Trump and JD Vance would love nothing more than for Vice President Harris to stand on that stage and say, elect me because you will make history. 

She’s not saying that. She’s saying elect me for all of these other reasons. Elect me because I’m decent, because I’ll fight for you, because I know what needs to be done and because I respect America.

She’s essentially saying, elect me because I am a patriot and the other guy is not.

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Ari Melber speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

For years, we’ve known her as the vice president but tonight, America got to meet Harris for the role she’s played most of her career: representing the people. 

It was a home run of a speech. What we heard was her give the opening statement: here’s who I am, here’s where I come from and these are my values.

Then she made the case against Donald Trump and she made it more directly and more bluntly than we’ve heard throughout this inclusive and joyous convention. She needed to do that because that’s what candidates do. 

So for all the joy, she hit him hard legally — she spoke about Jan. 6, democracy and fraud. She also made a point to say something that’s legally true, that Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse. That is something that fewer people have said from the main stage — that, again, is the Kamala Harris we know from being the tough prosecutor.

Then third, we got the closing argument, broadening back out to the message: we can do this together, I'm proud to be American, we’re not going back.

In each of those chapters, we got what you would get from her in the courtroom — and she’s good at it.

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Harris demonstrated some elite storytelling ability tonight. It felt like the nation was becoming more acquainted with her as she told stories of her parents’ background and her upbringing. And when it comes to the sheer politics, she showed she’s very skilled at weaving her personal background into discussions about voter issues.

Whether she was discussing her mom’s experience as a health professional, how her parents’ reverence for the civil rights movement prepped her for a legal career, or the pride her family and their neighbors had in homeownership, she told a relatable story about the positive role that the government has played in her family and the good things it can do for others.

It’s a markedly different approach than Trump and the GOP are taking — and with much better delivery, too.

The one thing that stuck out to me was the dissonance between the joyousness at the convention and the Democratic Party’s treatment of its pro-Palestinian factions. Party leaders snubbed the Uncommitted movement and the delegates who spoke up about their demand for an arms embargo against Israel were booted from the floor. How the party dealt with their own this week spoke volumes, and it certainly won’t go unnoticed among undecided voters for whom Gaza is a major issue.

Stephanie Ruhle speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

Just to draw a contrast, tonight, what was Donald Trump doing? He was posting on media things like “where’s Hunter?” and “no, Tim Walz wasn’t coach, he was assistant coach.”

And that’s funny, but it’s also not. It’s actually pretty devastating.

So people will of course ask, was Harris' speech perfect? But look at what she’s running against. It's darkness and fear vs. optimism and light. And that’s what she offered tonight, not just optimism and light but real policy and a vision for the country.

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Alex Wagner speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

We’ve talked a lot over the course last couple of days about how Democrats are trying to reclaim patriotism. I feel like it culminated in this night. 

There are these gigantic flags. There’s The Chicks singing the Star Spangled Banner.  There’s the thesis that came into full flower tonight with Kamala Harris making the argument that the true strength, the true integrity, the true patriotism, lies in the Democratic Party.

They have opened the flaps of the tent to encompass Republicans, to encompass doubters, to encompass people who felt culturally divorced from the party for decades and here we have one of the broadest, deepest, most diverse coalitions I have ever seen. All of them marching under the stars and stripes. It’s really something else.

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