Key takeaways from day three of DNC 2024: Walz says Trump's agenda isn't just 'weird, it's wrong'

Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz delivers the "big dad energy" in his national debut; Democratic heavy-hitters from former President Bill Clinton on down focus their fire on “freedom”; and stars such as Oprah Winfrey, Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Maren Morris and Mindy Kaling lend their celebrity to Kamala Harris’s cause. This is Yahoo News' succinct wrap up of day three of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Here’s what you need to know:

🖼 Big picture

Exactly one month ago, President Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to replace him atop the Democratic ticket. It feels like it’s been one year. And aside from Harris’s rapid rise — she went from having a favorable rating almost as low as Biden’s to leading former President Donald Trump seemingly overnight — the sudden emergence of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as a leading voice for post-Biden Democrats has probably been the most dizzying development of the last 30 days.

Walz has long been popular in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, but he was largely unknown everywhere else. Wednesday was his national debut — and he laid the Americana on thick.

“I haven’t given a lot of big speeches like this,” the former high-school teacher and football coach said near the end of his remarks. “But I have given a lot of pep talks. So let me finish with this, team. It’s the fourth quarter. We’re down a field goal. But we’re on offense and we’ve got the ball. We’re driving down the field. And boy, do we have the right team. Kamala Harris is tough. Kamala Harris is experienced. And Kamala Harris is ready.”

📌 Key takeaways

Walz and the opposite of "weird." The Democrats’ new vice presidential nominee might be the “weird” guy — that is, the dude who popularized his party’s favorite new description of Donald Trump, JD Vance and their fellow MAGA Republicans.

But Walz’s acceptance speech Wednesday night made it abundantly clear that his job now is to seem as “not weird” as possible — and to help Harris’s Democratic Party seem more mainstream than Trump’s GOP in the process.

Walz couldn’t seem more like a “typical Trump supporter” if he tried. As his wife, Gwen, said in an introductory video, he “grew up in a small town in Nebraska … spent summers working on the family farm …. went to college on the G.I. Bill … taught for over 15 years … coached football and led the team to a state championship … spent a lot of time working with Republicans [in Congress] … [and is a] lifelong hunter and gun owner.”

Walz also served in the Army National Guard, drives a vintage truck, wears flannels and a camo cap and listens to Bob Seger. The heartland is strong in this one.

And yet he’s the same Walz who spoke openly Wednesday about advising his school’s gay-straight alliance, enduring fertility treatments, supporting background checks and red-flag laws and passing a flurry of progressive policies as Minnesota governor, including paid family leave and free school lunch.

“While other states were banning books from their schools,” Walz said, “we were banishing hunger from ours.”

Walz’s implicit argument is that all of those things, along with the things that he and Harris want to accomplish if elected, are “normal” too — the kind of things a guy like him can get behind.

In contrast, Walz said Wednesday, Trump and Vance are pushing policies that “nobody asked for.”

“It’s an agenda that serves nobody except the richest and the most extreme among us — and it’s an agenda that does nothing for our neighbors in need,” he said. “Is it weird? Absolutely. But it’s also wrong, and it’s dangerous.”

Growing up in Butte, Neb. — population: 400 — Walz said he and his neighbors learned “how to take care of each other.”

“But some folks,” he added, “just don’t understand what it takes to be a good neighbor.”

Star power. When it comes to Hollywood and politics, Democrats have been lapping Republicans for years. The RNC had Kid Rock, Lee Greenwood and Hulk Hogan. Wednesday’s DNC had Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Maren Morris and Mindy Kaling, among others. As America’s first true celebrity president, Trump might have hoped to change that dynamic. Wednesday’s program proved that he hasn’t.

But one of the night’s star speakers probably stung Trump more than any other: Oprah Winfrey, who appeared in a purple pantsuit and purple glasses to reach out to her fellow “registered independents.”

"There are people who want you to see our country as a nation of us against them,” Winfrey said. “People who want to scare you. People who want to rule you. People who'd have you believe that books are dangerous and assault rifles are safe. That there's a right way to worship and a wrong way to love. People who seek first to divide and then to conquer. But here's the thing: When we stand together, it's impossible to conquer us."

“America is an ongoing project,” she added. “It requires commitment. It requires being open to the hard work and the heart work of democracy. And every now and then it requires standing up to life's bullies.”

A new explainer in chief? Former President Bill Clinton, now 78, has been addressing Democratic delegates from the convention stage for a staggering 44 years — ever since he debuted as a 33-year-old Arkansas governor delivering a tribute to Harry Truman in 1980. That’s 12 convention speeches in all, Wednesday’s included.

So Clinton knows the drill. He praised Biden for doing “something that's really hard for a politician to do” — “voluntarily giv[ing] up political power" — and thanked him for “his courage, compassion, his class, his service, his sacrifice.” He joked that Harris, who worked at McDonald’s as a teenager, will soon “break my record as the president who spent the most time at McDonald’s.” Then he turned to the task at hand, framing the election in the kind of terms that once inspired former President Barack Obama to dub him “the explainer in chief.”

“[Trump] mostly talks about himself, so the next time you hear him, don’t count the lies — count the I’s,” Clinton said. “When Kamala Harris is president, every day will begin with you, you, you, you.”

But it was hard to miss that Clinton’s speech came relatively early in the night — and that younger Democrats such as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro were given a bigger, brighter spotlight in primetime.

That changing of the guard raised an interesting question: Could one of them be the party’s next Bill Clinton — the Democratic Party’s next wunderkind, its next master messenger?

Shapiro’s speech was forceful, but perhaps a little pat. Moore’s was more personal. But Buttigieg’s was by far the most Clintonesque, citing the very existence of his family — his husband Chasten, their adopted children — as evidence of the power and potential of “a better kind of politics.”

“Right now, the other side is appealing to what is smallest within you,” Buttigieg said. “They’re telling you that greatness comes from going back to the past. They’re telling you that anyone different from you is a threat. They’re telling you that your neighbor, or nephew, or daughter who disagrees with you politically isn’t just wrong, but is now the enemy.”

“I believe in a better politics,” he continued. “One that finds us at our most decent, and open, and brave. The kind of politics that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are offering. And as you have felt these many days, that kind of politics just feels better to be part of. There is joy in it, as well as power.”

Reclaiming "freedom." “Freedom” isn’t just Harris’s theme song. It’s also the watchword of her campaign.

That’s no mistake. For years, rising Democrats — Buttigieg included — have sought to reclaim the concept from Republicans and redefine it around core Democratic principles: “the freedom not just to get by, but get ahead”; “the freedom to be safe from gun violence”; “the freedom to make decisions about your body”; the “sacred freedom to vote.”

Not just the “freedom from,” as Buttigieg once put it, but the “freedom to.”

Wednesday’s official theme was “A Fight for Our Freedoms,” and it acted like an organizing principle for the dozens of Democrats tasked with addressing a seemingly disparate set of issues. Again and again, speakers warned about a freedom Trump wants to “take away” (according to Harris & Co.), often citing Project 2025 plans that Trump loyalists prepared for a possible second term.

“Page 486 puts limits on contraception,” said Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. “Page 450 threatens access to IVF. Page 455 says states have to report miscarriages to the Trump Administration.

Page 451 says the only legitimate family is a married mother and father where the father works. … [Trump] wants to weaponize the federal government to control our choices.”

Others sounded similar alarms about voting, infrastructure, education, LGBTQ rights, the Supreme Court and the election denialism that led to Jan. 6.

“While [Trump] cloaks himself in the blanket of freedom, what he offers isn’t freedom at all,” Shapiro said. “It sure as hell isn’t freedom to say, you can go vote, but he gets to pick the winner. That’s not freedom. … We are the party of real freedom.”

Yet things got a little fuzzier when Democrats tried to unpack that concept. An interstitial video about what “freedom means” was emblematic. “Freedom means unity,” various voices said. “Caring for others … Being able to feel safe … My choice to vote. Freedom to read what I want to read … Be who I want to be … Union strong … Basic human rights.”

And finally: “EVERYTHING.”

A broad message can be a useful message; it lets voters project whatever they want onto it — and prevents opponents from sharpening their attacks. But if anyone was craving policy depth on Wednesday night, there wasn’t much to be found.

The border finally gets some attention. Almost no one mentioned immigration during the first two nights of the DNC. It was an understandable omission. After Biden took office in 2021 and reversed some of Trump’s hard-line restrictions, illegal border crossings surged to a record high of more than 2 million per year, on average. Trump and his minions have hammered Harris for her role in trying to address the root causes of the crisis, painting her (inaccurately) as Biden’s failed “border czar.”

But day three tried to flip the script. For nearly an hour in the middle of the program, a series of Latino politicians, border-state officials, law-enforcement officers and immigration activists took the stage to defend Harris’s record and make the case that while Trump offers “demonization and bluster,” as Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar put it, “Democrats have solutions.”

Yes, those solutions include Harris’s commitment to “fight for pathways to citizenship” (California Rep. Pete Aguilar) and prove that “welcoming immigrants isn’t a Democratic or Republican value, it’s an American value” (content creator Carlos Eduardo Espina) — traditional progressive priorities.

But there’s another side to the equation as well — one that Harris is emphasizing more than earlier Democrats. Building on her work “prosecuting transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers” as California attorney general — work that proves, according to Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, that she is “tough as nails when it comes to securing our border” — Harris is also vowing to resurrect and pass Biden’s hardline bipartisan border bill if elected (the one Trump torpedoed, according to Democrats).

It remains to be seen if a President Harris would have the votes in Congress — including among progressives — to pull that off. But Wednesday’s contrast was clear enough: Trump’s either/or border message vs. Harris’s both/and approach.

“Trump says a safe nation can’t be an immigrant nation. That’s flat wrong,” Murphy argued. “Kamala Harris knows that we can be a nation of proud immigrants and a nation of strong immigration laws.”

"Tough as nails." The immigration argument Democrats made Wednesday — that Harris’s experience as a prosecutor will serve her well in future battles over border security — is one they repeated throughout the night on issue after issue.

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a former attorney general herself, recalled how Harris “took on the big banks after the mortgage crisis” and “helped win billions for families nationwide”; multiple videos showed Harris during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, flustering Trump administration officials with her sharp questions.

Playing on biases about women in power, Trump likes to claim that people wouldn’t respect Harris as president; that she wouldn’t be tough enough on the world stage; that she’s weak. Wednesday’s program was designed to combat that charge by reminding voters of Harris’s roots in law enforcement. “Kamala knows you go from the courthouse to the White House,” said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. “Not the other way around.”

🗣️ Wednesday’s notable speakers and performers

• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

• Former President Bill Clinton

• House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi

• Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg

• Media personality Oprah Winfrey

• Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro

• Maryland Gov. Wes Moore

• Colorado Gov. Jared Polis

• House Leader Hakeem Jeffries

• New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker

• Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto

• Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar

• Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy

• Planned Parenthood president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson

• Delaware Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester

• Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson

• New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim

• Former Mike Pence aide Olivia Troye

• Poet Amanda Gorman

• Actress Mindy Kaling

• Musician John Legend

• Musician Stevie Wonder

• Comedian Kenan Thompson

🗓 What’s happening Thursday

• The day’s theme will be “For Our Future.” It’s unclear how this differs from Tuesday’s theme, “A Bold Vision for America's Future” — but expect Democrats to keep claiming, as they have all week, that Harris offers a “new way forward” while Trump just wants to “take us back.” Harris will headline with her acceptance speech; other speakers will include North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an ex-Republican, and actress Kerry Washington.

📖 Political terms you should know

➕ Read more

• How Kamala Harris is trying to claim the mantle of change. “For nearly a decade, Trump’s bulldozing approach has been premised on the idea that the nation was staring into an abyss and only urgent upheaval could save the country. The question for Harris is whether she can frame Democrats keeping power in 2024 as a break from that dark and divisive era.” [New York Times]

• Democrats push tensions below the surface as the party sprints to beat Trump. “Campaign officials are delivering a public message that Democrats have coalesced behind Harris and are determined to defeat Trump. Yet differences over Biden’s withdrawal from the race are bubbling up within the party, raising questions about whether Democrats can sustain a cohesive front if she stumbles or her poll numbers start to sink.” [NBC News]

• Kamala Harris memes are no joke. They're part of an organized campaign. “At a moment when fewer Americans get their news from mainstream or legacy media outlets such as newspapers and cable news, the Harris campaign has prioritized working through influencers and content creators to spread their message as they scramble in a shortened window to introduce the 59-year-old vice president to the country.” [USA Today]

• Why protesters outside the DNC have far outnumbered those at the Republicans’ convention. “Protesters said they were more enthusiastic about showing up at the Democratic convention, which kicked off Monday, for a variety of reasons. Most prominently, they include the progressive protesters’ belief that they may have a far more viable path to persuading a Harris-led ticket to enact meaningful policy change over the war in Gaza. But many also said they’re angry with Democrats because they believe that as the incumbent party, they hold more responsibility for the war than Republicans right now.” [NPR]