The Democrats are putting their differences aside and throwing their support behind Joe Biden, the party’s official candidate for president. During Thursday’s Democratic National Convention, a number of presidential hopefuls who ran against Biden this year appeared as a united front to endorse him.
The segment — dubbed “United We Stand” — featured Sen. Cory Booker, former mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former congressman Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang sharing their experiences with Biden.
“You could think of this sort of like Survivor, the interviews of all the people who got voted off the island,” Booker joked at the beginning, to laughter from the others. “Bernie, don’t you laugh. I have questions for you: Like, why does my girlfriend like you more than she likes me?” (The girlfriend in question is Rosario Dawson.)
“Because she’s smarter than you,” Sanders quipped. “That’s the obvious answer, right?”
Klobuchar spoke about receiving support from Biden in her own political career, while Yang called his “magic” the fact that “everything he does becomes the new reasonable.” Warren, meanwhile, shared a personal memory of Biden.
“I think the day I saw Joe the clearest was on the one-year anniversary of the Boston marathon bombing,” she said. “And everyone, of course, was enormously honored to have the vice president here. But at some point in that speech he shifted to the parent who had lost a child, to the man who had lost a wife, to someone who had experienced loss very personally and he spoke to each of the families from the heart. “
Booker signed off by saying, “I mean this sincerely: It was an honor to run against you. And it’s even a greater honor to stand with you in support of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”
The majority of those featured in the package also served as speakers during the convention — including Yang, who, upon seeing the DNC’s speaker lineup, tweeted, “I’ve got to be honest. I kind of expected to speak.” He was later added as Thursday night’s first speaker.
Buttigieg, meanwhile, spoke following a tribute to Biden’s late son, Beau. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, touched on his own past service and advocating for LGBTQ+ rights.
“The day I was born, the idea of an out candidate seeking any federal office at all was laughable,” he said. “Yet earlier this year, I campaigned for the presidency — often with my husband at my side, winning delegates to this very convention. Now I come to this convention proudly supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”
Buttigieg follows Sanders and Klobuchar on Monday and Warren on Wednesday. The biggest show of solidarity in the party, though, may have come in Biden’s choosing onetime critic Kamala Harris as his VP. But when she spoke Wednesday night, it was as a team.
“Joe will be a president who turns our challenges into purpose,” said Harris, promising to build back a better economy, end the pandemic and dismantle racial injustice. “Joe and I believe that we can build that beloved community, one that is strong and decent, just and kind. One in which we all can see ourselves.”
