‘He is the OG girl dad’: Ashley and Jill Biden pay tribute to Joe

Joe Biden officially passed the torch to Kamala Harris, his vice president, on Monday at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) after a pair of glowing speeches about who he was as a family man from two people who know him best: his wife and daughter.

Ashley and first lady Dr Jill Biden spoke directly ahead of the 46th president in Chicago, and spoke about how he led their family through dark times — the same way, they said, he had led the Democratic Party and the nation.

The first lady, in particular, pointed to her husband’s decision to step down as their party’s 2024 nominee as a moment when she fell in love with him again.

“Joe and I have been together for almost 50 years, and still, there are moments when I fall in love with him all over again,” the first lady said, recounting how she “saw him dig deep into his soul and decide to no longer seek reelection, and endorse Kamala Harris with faith and conviction.”

Ashley Biden, the president’s youngest child, recalled her father’s support for her as an independent woman growing up.

“Joe Biden is the OG girl dad,” she said. “He told me I could be anything, and I could do anything.”

Together, the two women depicted the president as a relentless champion of women who, in the end, had made the decision to step aside for one when the moment called for it.

“He wasn’t just a girl dad. I could see that he valued and trusted women,” Ashley Biden said, with strong emphasis on the final word. “How he listened to his mother. How he believed in his sister. And, most of all, how he respected my mother’s career.”

The timing of the pair’s introduction of their respective husband and father, the president, could not have been more timely for Democrats.

The party has gone on the offensive against Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, over the issue of respect for women and their roles in society — chosen or otherwise.

The Republican ticket has faced withering criticism from their opponents in recent weeks after comments of Vance’s from 2021 resurfaced, revealing that he had insulted childless Americans and women especially. That scandal grew even worse for the GOP last week after it was revealed that Vance, then running for Senate, had appeared on a right-wing podcast and meekly agreed as a host opined that postmenopausal women had no purpose in society beyond supporting their adult children as grandparents.

Harris, as the first Black woman to be chosen as nominee of a major political party, has opted to focus more on her opponents and their alleged views of women rather than on her own status as a history-making candidate for office. The approach contrasts to some extent with the rhetoric from some of her biggest boosters onstage Monday evening, including women such as the Bidens and Hillary Clinton, the party’s 2016 nominee. Clinton herself was the first woman to win a party’s nominating contest that year.

The first lady was met onstage by a wave of green signs around the convention center bearing her name. Her remarks, along with her daughter’s, served to refocus the night on the incumbent president — whose own timeslot was relegated late into the night, thanks to a combination of convention delays and protests outside which delayed entry for some delegates and media.

Over the next three days, the convention is set to shift further towards a focus on Harris as the party’s nominee.