WASHINGTON — Bill Clinton will rip President Donald Trump’s handling of the job he once held on the second night Tuesday of the all-virtual Democratic National Convention.
Paraphrasing Harry Truman’s famous maxim that the buck stops with the presidency, Clinton will say Trump’s only consistent goal during his almost four years in office is trying to blame others for his own mistakes.
“At a time like this, the Oval Office should be a command center. Instead, it’s a storm center. There’s only chaos,” Clinton will say, according to an excerpt released by organizers. “Just one thing never changes — his determination to deny responsibility and shift the blame. The buck never stops there.”
Clinton will, by contrast, hail Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would be “a go-to-work president.”
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“A down-to-earth, get-the-job-done guy. A man with a mission: to take responsibility, not shift the blame; concentrate, not distract; unite, not divide. Our choice is Joe Biden,” Clinton will say.
Clinton is one of three former presidents speaking at the convention, along with Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, drawing a contrast with Trump. Republicans’ only two living presidents at the time, George H.W. and George W. Bush, stayed away from Trump’s 2016 convention, and the younger Bush’s relationship with Trump seems to have only deteriorated since.
“Joe has the experience, character, and decency to bring us together and restore America’s greatness,” Carter will say Tuesday, according to an excerpt. Obama will speak Wednesday.
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Clinton and Carter will anchor the second night of the convention, along with Biden’s wife, Jill, who will speak live from the classroom of a Wilmington, Delaware, high school where she once taught English.
Biden, a community college professor, will speak about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is having on education and of the personal tragedy her husband suffered before they married, when his first wife and one-year-old daughter were killed in a car accident.
“There are times when I couldn’t imagine how he did it — how he put one foot in front of the other and kept going,” she will say, according to an excerpt. “How do you make a broken family whole? The same way you make a nation whole. With love and understanding — and with small acts of compassion. With bravery. With unwavering faith.”
And in a surprise, Cindy McCain, the widow of former Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain will appear in a video about the unlikely friendship between Joe Biden and McCain. In a way, it’s another note of support for Biden from a Republican who broke with Trump. McCain, as the GOP presidential nominee in 2008, ran against the Obama-Biden ticket and later became one of Trump’s most vocal Republican critics.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York will remind the faithful that a president Biden would be able to get little of his sweeping legislative agenda passed unless Democrats can win back the Senate.
“But if we’re going to win this battle for the soul of our nation, Joe can’t do it alone,” Schumer will say, according to excerpts. “Democrats must take back the Senate. We will stay united, from Sanders and Warren to Manchin and Warner — and together, we will bring bold and dramatic change to our country.”
Former Secretary of State John Kerry will say Trump “doesn’t know how to defend our troops” or our country, adding, “The only person he’s interested in defending is himself.” While former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates will say the president has “trampled the rule of law, trying to weaponize our Justice Department to attack his enemies and protect his friends.”
