Washington — Former President Bill Clinton drew a stark contrast between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, characterizing Trump as a selfish leader who "creates chaos" and "curates" it, and Harris as the candidate with the vision and experience to solve the nation's problems.
"In 2024, we have got a pretty clear choice, it seems to me: Kamala Harris, for the people. And the other guy, who's proved, even more than the first go-around, that he's about me, myself and I," Clinton said in Chicago on the third night of the Democratic National Convention.
"I know which one I like better for our country: Kamala Harris will solve problems, seize opportunities, ease our fears and make sure every American, however they vote, has a chance to chase their dreams," said Clinton. "Meanwhile, Donald Trump has been a paragon of consistency. He's still dividing, he's still blaming, he's still belittling other people. He creates chaos, and then he sort of curates it as if it were precious art."
Clinton, who accepted the 1996 presidential nomination in Chicago, contrasted the two throughout his remarks, saying Harris has "the vision, the experience, the temperament, the will — and yes — the sheer joy to get something done."
Trump, Clinton said, "mostly talks about himself."
"The next time you hear him, don't count the lies, count the I's," he quipped. "His vendettas, his vengeance, his complaints, his conspiracies. He's like one of those tenors opening up before he walks out on stage like I did, trying to get his lungs to open by saying, 'me, me, me, me, me.'"
If Harris becomes president, he said, "every day will begin with 'you, you, you, you.'"
Clinton also said he "almost croaked" when Trump said in the first debate that nobody respected America anymore like they did when he was president.
"Look, you got to give it to him, he's a good actor," he said. "With a straight face, he cited evidence of the respect that existed for us when he was there — the presidents of North Korea and Russia."
He also poked fun at Trump for his "endless tributes to the late great Hannibal Lecter," a fictional serial killer that Trump repeatedly references on the campaign trail. He recalled President Obama once referred to him as "the Explainer in Chief," but Clinton said he was stumped by what Trump meant by the Hannibal Lecter reference: "I've thought and thought about it, and I don't know what to say."
Clinton warned Democrats not to be complacent, saying "we've seen more than one election slip away from us when we thought it couldn't happen, when people got distracted by phony issues or overconfident."
Wednesday's speech was the 12th time Clinton has addressed a Democratic convention. He gave his first convention speech in 1980 when he was the 33-year-old governor of Arkansas.
He was a star at the 2012 convention, delivering nearly an hour-long speech that made a more convincing case for Obama's reelection than Obama himself could. In 2016, Clinton's tribute to his wife, Hillary Clinton, who was the Democratic nominee, was similar in length.
But in 2020, as the party shifted to the left, Clinton was given less than five minutes. Liberals were denouncing some of Clinton's policy achievements, including the 1994 crime bill, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal had been reevaluated during the Me Too movement.
Wednesday's speech stretched to nearly 30 minutes.
Clinton, who turned 78 earlier this week, said he wasn't sure how many more conventions he would be able to attend — he noted that he's "the oldest man in my family in four generations," adding, "the only personal vanity I want to assert is I'm still younger than Donald Trump."
"Here's what I want you to know, if you vote for this team, if you can get them elected and let them bring in this breath of fresh air, you will be proud of it for the rest of your life," Clinton said. "Your children will be proud of it. Your grandchildren will be proud of it. Take it from a man who once had the honor to be called in this convention, 'a man from Hope.'"
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