The 81-year-old makes a powerful impression from the stage. Some sentences are incomplete, but gone are the ramblings and lost reasoning that occurred in the disastrous summer debate against the Republicans' Trump.
Now his voice is sharp and he often smiles.
I have five months left of my presidency and I have a lot to do, says the president.
I love my job. But I love my country more. The talk about me being angry (at party colleagues who pressured him not to run for re-election) is not true.
Has a point
The audience in the giant arena is feverish and chants alternatingly "We love Joe" and "Thanks, Joe".
The nearly 50-minute-long speech contains both tear-jerking, personal anecdotes and a detailed account of a long political career.
Biden emphasizes that during his time in the White House, he has strengthened the economy, launched infrastructure projects, taken climate initiatives, lowered the cost of certain prescription medicines, and stood up for democracy, abortion rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. He notes that Ukraine has not fallen, that Sweden and Finland have become members of NATO, and promises to work towards a ceasefire in Gaza.
The demonstrators outside have a point. Many innocent people are being killed on both sides.
Meanwhile, the Republicans' Donald Trump is dismissed as someone who "hasn't built a damn thing" and a criminal.
Crime will decrease when we put a prosecutor in the White House instead of a convicted criminal, he says with a wink to the former prosecutor Kamala Harris.
Best decision
Biden describes Harris as tough and emphasizes that she has great integrity.
Asking her to become vice president was the best decision I've made in my career. Her story is America's, something our children can look up to, says the president.
Let me ask you: Are you ready to vote for freedom, democracy, and America? Are you ready to choose Kamala Harris and Tim Walz?
Harris has been a very loyal running mate, and Biden knows that his legacy will look even better if Kamala Harris wins the fall election.
After the appearance, Joe and his wife Jill Biden will travel to California for a vacation, thus skipping the rest of the party convention.
Joe Biden, born in 1942 in the mining town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is the 46th President of the United States.
He was Barack Obama's vice president between 2009 and 2017. Before that, he was Delaware's senator for 36 years.
Biden is known as a cross-party centrist politician. Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, he highlighted his experience, his broad foreign policy knowledge, and his working-class background. In the summer of 2024, he announced that he would not run for re-election but would instead support his vice president Kamala Harris.
He is married to Jill Biden and has two living children. Biden's gripping family history is well-known in the US. His first wife died in a car accident in 1972, along with their one-year-old daughter. Biden, who had been elected senator just a month earlier, became a single father to sons Beau and Hunter – who were also injured in the accident. Beau Biden passed away from brain cancer in 2015. Together with Jill Biden, he has daughter Ashley Biden.
