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The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House
Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice-president, has attacked Donald Trump as bizarre and extreme while calling on Americans to “turn the page” on the Republican candidate and back Kamala Harris for president.
Walz’s comments on the third night of Democratic National Convention came as the party sought to sharpen the contrast between vice-president Harris and Trump and cast the former president as unfit for office and out of touch with mainstream American values.
“Leaders don’t spend all day insulting people and blaming others. Leaders do the work,” the Minnesota governor said on Wednesday in a fiery speech in Chicago. “So I don’t know about you, I’m ready to turn the page on these guys.”
Since Harris launched her campaign last month following President Joe Biden’s exit from the White House race, Democrats have increasingly labelled Trump as ageing, weak and selfish, in addition to their charges that he is a strongman who threatens US democracy.
They have also focused their message on protecting personal freedoms to abortion rights, gun safety and voting.
“When we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love, freedom to make your own healthcare decisions,” Walz said. “Your kids’ freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall.”
Walz, who emerged from relative political obscurity to become Harris’s running mate, has become one of the party’s sharpest critics of Trump and his running mate JD Vance, labelling them and their platform as “weird”.
On Wednesday, Walz added a twist: “It’s an agenda nobody asked for,” he said. “Is it weird? Absolutely. But it’s also wrong and dangerous.”
Walz delivered the keynote speech shortly after Oprah Winfrey, the star television talk show host, made a surprise appearance and gave an impassioned plea for voters to back Harris and confront “life’s bullies”.
“We are beyond ridiculous tweets and lies and foolery,” said Winfrey, who told the arena that she was an independent voter. “These are complicated times, people, and they require adult conversation.”
Democrats’ efforts to present themselves as the more patriotic party — with the audience breaking out in chants of “USA” — were aided by appearances from Republicans such as Geoff Duncan, the former lieutenant-governor of Georgia, who said he had distanced themselves from Trump because of his conduct in office, including his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“Let me be clear to my Republican friends at home watching: if you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you’re not a Democrat,” Duncan said. “You’re a patriot.”
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