Illinois U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin likened Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to “a bad boss” during a speech on the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“You want time off to take care of your sick parents? Ask Donald Trump: Denied. In Donald Trump’s America, there’s no paid family leave,” said Durbin, the state’s senior senator and the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. “Want to have a child but need (in vitro fertilization)? Too bad. That’s shut down too. Want a pay raise? Too bad: The boss just gave himself one, so there’s nothing left for you.
“Donald Trump reminds us of a boss we’ve all had — the guy who thinks he’s ‘a very stable genius’ but is driving the company into the ground.”
During his roughly four-minute address at the United Center, Durbin, a former Senate colleague of both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, drew an economic contrast between the current administration and the four years under the former president and current GOP presidential nominee.
While Trump promised to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure and bring back manufacturing in the U.S., Biden and Harris actually have done it, Durbin said, focusing in particular on the “blue wall” states that could prove key to victory for Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“Data centers in Wisconsin, semiconductors in Pennsylvania, electric vehicles in Michigan … these investments mean (a) strong economy, growing public schools, and well-funded, well-staffed first responders. These investments mean hope.
“That’s what Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are fighting for.”
Durbin assailed the effect of Trump’s presidency on workers, saying “he wants a chance to make America unemployed again,” while under Biden and Harris “they recovered all those millions of jobs Trump watched slip away. They added over six million jobs on top of that — 16 million jobs in total, 16 million.”
Citing Ed Smith, the powerful late downstate union activist and former head of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, who died in January, “there’s joy in this battle.”
When Democrats win, Durbin said, “we help people buy their first home, send their kids to college and retire with dignity,” noting his background from a “strong union family” from Granite City.
As Durbin offered a pro-union message before introducing union workers who joined the convention virtually, members of the Illinois delegation flashed signs reading “Union Yes.”
The crowds joined in a chant of “Union Yes” as Lee Saunders, President of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, took the stage.
Durbin followed his former press secretary Sandra Abrevaya and her husband, Brian Wallach, who spoke of their work to found nonprofit I Am ALS after Wallach was diagnosed with the degenerative disease.
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In a speech that framed the election as one about “jobs,” Durbin didn’t touch on the subject of his own future employment.
Durbin, 79, has yet to say whether he’ll seek a sixth term in 2026, leaving a host of Illinois officials in limbo as they plot their own next moves.
A former congressman from Springfield who was first elected to the Senate the last time the DNC came to Chicago in 1996, Durbin now chairs the Judiciary Committee, a perch from which he’s helped advance many of Biden’s nominees to the federal court. But the post also has exposed Durbin to criticism from the left for not doing more about alleged ethics violations among members of the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority.
When Biden dropped out of the presidential race and backed Harris last month, Durbin waited until after Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker endorsed the vice president before offering his support.
Two years ago, Durbin lost a proxy battle to Pritzker over control of the state Democratic Party. Durbin backed U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly of Matteson for the job, which she briefly held before being ousted in favor of a Pritzker-backed chair, state Rep. Elizabeth “Lisa” Hernandez of Cicero.
Speaking earlier Monday at the United Center, U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, a third-term Democrat from Naperville, used her speech to criticize Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and promote the Democrats’ efforts to bolster health care coverage.
“He took the COVID crisis and turned it into a catastrophe. We can never let him be our president again,” Underwood, a registered nurse and former Obama administration official, said of Trump.
“Four years ago, it was not safe to hold a convention like this. But tonight, thousands have gathered in this arena in my home state of Illinois to make sure Kamala Harris is the next president of the United States,” she said. “We have come so far these past four years and we’re not going back.”
Earlier in the evening, Democrats focused on Trump’s poor handling of COVID-19. The crowd booed Trump’s image on a sizzle reel that contrasted his and Biden’s responses to the pandemic.
Underwood is facing a reelection challenge from Republican James Marter of Oswego, who has lost three previous GOP primary bids for Congress and one for U.S. Senate.
Adding to the Illinois flavor of the evening, Cardinal Blase Cupich, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago, gave the opening invocation and Mayor Brandon Johnson was the first featured speaker.
Former Chicago Bulls star and Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr also spoke, a few minutes before Chicago-born former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Kerr, fresh off coaching Team USA to a gold medal in the Paris Olympics, told the crowd it was “so fun to be back here in the United Center.”
“As you guys know, a lot of good stuff has happened in this building, especially in the ’90s,” said Kerr, who was on the Bulls for three of the team’s six championships that decade. “You young people, Google ‘Michael Jordan’ and you can read all about it.”
Predicting a barrage of “shut up and whistle” tweets in response to his speech, Kerr chose to speak because “it was too important as an American citizen not to speak up in an election of this magnitude,” he said, adding that Harris and Walz are leaders who “have devoted their lives to serving other people.”
Chicago Tribune’s Rick Pearson, Sarah Freishtat, Molly Morrow and Olivia Olander contributed.
