Biden loyalists saw last night’s schedule fiasco as a new blow after the indignities of recent weeks.
At the first night of the Democratic National Convention—which was supposed to be dedicated to thanking him—the president was still speaking after midnight when many TV viewers, and voters, on the East Coast were tucked up in bed.
DNC organizers put the lag down to “raucous applause” in the “electric atmosphere” of the convention hall.
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The problem for Joe Biden was that it pushed his speech which had already gone from closing night to curtain opener out of prime time altogether, starting at 10.26 pm CT (11.26 pm ET).
Axios claimed the late hour “reopened the wounds" for some of his allies, quoting a longtime Biden aide as texting: “This is awful. He literally set up a campaign and handed it over to them—do they have to cut him out of prime time?”
As Politico pointed out, that meant the speech was screened late—finishing at 12.20 am ET—in swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina, “on a night that was supposed to be all about thanking him.”
“I think these guys have a big scheduling problem,” a veteran Democrat told Politico as the clock ticked toward midnight. “Do they realize the universe runs on East Coast time?”
Election forecaster Nate Silver suggested the scheduling was a conspiracy, posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “you’ve gotta be pretty naive to think the prolonged DNC tonight is for any reason other than diminishing Biden’s visibility.”
“Like how pilled do you have to be to think it’s just a coincidence that the President of the United States doesn’t speak until so late,” he added in a second post.
On CNN, Anderson Cooper laughed off the excuse from DNC organizers.
“By the way,” said Cooper, chuckling. “I see a report that convention officials are saying that the reason went it long is because of all the ‘raucous applause.’
“Uh, that’s the sort of thing, you build into this. We have had conventions before, you sort of know.”
CNN’s Audie Cornish added: “That’s amazing spin.”
The 30-minute delay meant Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Grace Meng lost their slots, as well as musical guest James Taylor.
Wisconsin’s former lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes, told Politico: “It’s hard to believe that some people got cut, because that thing went on forever.”
“Because of the raucous applause interrupting speaker after speaker, we ultimately skipped elements of our program to ensure we could get to President Biden as quickly as possible so that he could speak directly to the American people,” a statement from the organizers said.
“We are proud of the electric atmosphere in our convention hall and proud that our convention is showcasing the broad and diverse coalition behind the Harris-Walz ticket throughout the week on and off the stage.”
There was no mention in the statement of delays caused by protesters outside the hall causing delays with security screenings and the arrival of buses carrying delegates.
Some empty seats could be seen at the start of the program as police dealt with a group of about 100 demonstrators marching against the Gaza conflict who broke through a fence. Police said they did not make it into the inner perimeter.
After his disastrous performance in a televised debate with Donald Trump in late June, Biden reportedly told Democratic donors he would no longer schedule events after 8 p.m.
But his bedtime deadline was forgotten in Chicago, with Biden going on stage at about 10.30 p.m. CT (11.30 Eastern) and finishing at 11.20 p.m. CT (12.30 a.m. Eastern).
After the long wait, Biden wasn’t hanging around to see what the rest of the convention had to bring. He was flying off to California for a break with his family where he could watch the speeches from the comfort of a sofa.
