Hillary Clinton basked in some karmic revenge against Donald Trump on Monday night as the crowd at the Democratic National Convention chanted “Lock him up!”—eight years after the now convicted felon defeated her.
“Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial,” Clinton said. “When he woke up, he’d made his own kind of history: the first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions.”
The comment thrilled the crowd. “Lock him up!” they chanted, interrupting the speech. Clinton smiled and nodded along approvingly.
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She wore a sand-colored pantsuit—a departure from the suffragette white she donned when accepting the nomination eight years earlier. This time, she had a different mission.
“It is no surprise, is it, that he is lying about Kamala’s record?” Clinton asked. “He’s mocking her name and her laugh.”
“Sounds familiar,” she added. The audience cackled.
“But we have him on the run now,” Clinton said to resounding applause.
Though Clinton seemed delighted to slam Trump, the speech was bittersweet for the one-time nominee, who many Democrats had assumed would be the country’s first female president. Now, she hopes Kamala Harris will accomplish what she couldn’t.
“Together we put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling,” Clinton said. “Tonight, so close to breaking through once and for all, I want to tell you what I see through all those cracks—and why it matters for each and every one of us.”
Some women in the audience teared up. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had taken her seat at the front of the California delegation just minutes before Clinton took the stage, and the former first lady and presidential candidate pointed in Pelosi’s direction.
“I want my grandchildren and their grandchildren to know I was here,” Clinton said. “That we were here. And that we were with Kamala every step of the way.”
Clinton and Harris have grown close during the Biden presidency, the New York Times reported Monday. The two women have dined together at Clinton’s D.C. mansion, Whitehaven, a close neighbor of the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory, and discussed the vice president’s choice of running mate. Clinton and her husband endorsed Harris just hours after Biden dropped out of the race, long before Barack Obama did the same.
Harris’ presidential campaigns and, before that, her Senate office, have drawn staff from Clintonworld.
“She has been an incredible partner to Vice President Harris,” Democratic National Convention Committee Chair Minyon Moore said at a press conference Monday morning. “They have a great friendship. You know, they’re on speed dial with each other.”
