CHICAGO – Former President Bill Clinton mocked Republican nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday night, calling him a narcissist consumed by petty concerns that have nothing to do with the everyday problems of Americans.
Speaking at the Democratic National Convention, Clinton contrasted Trump’s fixation on the crowd with Vice President Kamala Harris’ focus on improving lives.
“In 2024, I think we have a pretty clear choice,” Clinton said at the United Center.
Harris is “for the people,” he said. “The other guy is all about me, me and me.”
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If Harris wins in November, she will become the first female president, shattering what Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called the “tallest, hardest glass ceiling” when she lost to Trump eight years ago.
As she addressed the prime-time crowd, Hillary Clinton looked on and applauded from the crowd as she stood between the couple’s daughter, Chelsea, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.
Bill Clinton’s speech offered self-deprecation. He gave a nod to his love of fast food and mentioned that Harris worked at McDonald’s when he was a student.
“I will be so happy when he actually comes to the White House as president because he will break my record as the president who has spent the most time at McDonald’s,” he said.
Clinton has spoken at every Democratic convention since 1976, when Jimmy Carter was the party’s nominee. Never one for brevity, he holds perhaps the dubious record of giving the longest Democratic acceptance speech in modern times. His address in 1996 was almost 65 minutes.
This one was less than half as long, and there was something nostalgic about it. “I want to say this from the bottom of my heart,” said Clinton, who is 78, two months younger than Trump. “I have no idea how many more of these I can get to.”
Famous for tinkering with the delivery of her speeches, Clinton tore up the draft on Monday — the first day of the convention — and began editing the speech from scratch, a person familiar with the speech’s preparation said.
Taking note of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo’s dictum to “campaign in poetry, govern in prose,” Clinton then worked to add a more folksy quality to the speech that also captured the enthusiasm generated by Harris’ candidacy.
But he also skewered Trump’s victory this fall to the delight of a desperate partisan audience. Former President Barack Obama once called Clinton “the secretary of explaining things.”
Still, Clinton admitted that even she can’t explain Trump’s constant campaign references to Hannibal Lecter, the cannibal from the 1991 horror film “The Silence of the Lambs.”
“I’ve thought about it,” he said. “Words fail me.”
After Clinton’s speech, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung attacked her in a statement.
“Bill Clinton is a complete loser who desperately grabs any spotlight he can get because no one cares what he has to say,” Cheung said. – The sad reality is that he, along with Crooked Hillary, suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome and has allowed his brain to rot to the point where he is a shell of the person he once was.
Ever since Clinton won the presidency in 1992, she has had an up-and-down relationship with the American public. He fended off an impeachment attempt launched by congressional Republicans in 1998 over his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Voters proved forgiving. When he left office three years later, 56 percent of Americans had a positive view of him, while only 33 percent had a negative view, according to an NBC News poll.
But just two months later, Clinton’s approval rating had dropped 22 points after issuing questionable pardons on her last day in office.
He worked to elect his wife in both this year’s 2008 and 2016 presidential elections, only to see her fail both times.
Now he’s ready to campaign in battleground states for Harris.
He may have a chance to vouch for Harris among older voters who credit him with leading a strong economy in the 1990s.
“If you vote for this team, if you get them elected and let them bring in this breath of fresh air, you’ll 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.”
“I’m doing my part,” he added. “Make your own.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
