This Tuesday was the second night of the Democratic National Convention, and it marked Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff‘s turn to make a case for his wife, current VP and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and why the nation should elect her for president. In his speech, Emhoff, the first ever second gentleman of this nation, and the person to put the first mezuzah in the vice president’s residence, leaned into his Jewish identity, one that he says his interfaith marriage helped him reconnect with and strengthen.
It was Cole Emhoff, Doug Emhoff’s son, who introduced his father at the DNC in a video full of childhood pictures, one with high production value and that also felt like your average bar mitzvah montage. In fact, Cole even shared a photo of Doug as a teen wearing a white suit and big floral bowtie, flanked by his parents and siblings in matching formal wear, and explained, “This is what my dad wore to his bar mitzvah.” As is customary in many a bar mitzvah slideshow, there was also a picture of Doug at Jewish summer camp where Cole said his father claims he was voted most athletic.
Cole talked about his dependable dad, the lawyer that his mom Kerstin (who produced the charming video) dubbed “the crisis guy,” and his roots in New Jersey and LA. He also mentioned Doug’s Jewish parents who think he “walks on water,” and the complexity of being a child of divorce but also the joy he and his sister Ella felt watching him fall in love with Kamala and act like teenagers. He talked about how when they married, she became their “momala,” and how his dad and Kamala showed him what true partnership is (Cole recently got married and Kamala officiated the ceremony). He shared when Kamala was chosen to be VP, Doug felt a bit out of place, at least in his eyes, in Capitol Hill, and how Cole and Ella wondered, “What is my goofy dad doing here?” But he added that “he’s found his voice around the issues that matter to him” while showing videos and pictures of Doug talking about fighting antisemitism and visiting Auschwitz and the Berlin Holocaust memorial. “We might not look like any family in the White House, but we are ready to represent all families in America,” Cole concluded before introducing his father on stage.
Doug walked out to “You Get What You Give” by the LA band New Radicals, and started out by kvelling about Cole and his “big, beautiful blended family.” He then paid special tribute to his mom, Barb, who he said is “the only one who thinks Kamala is the lucky one for marrying me,” and then pointed up to her, standing next to her husband and her granddaughter Ella, donning a hamsa necklace around her neck. In his speech, in which he went into endearing details about how he met and fell for Kamala, Doug likened the way Kamala was there for his family when they needed it to the way she will show up for the country — with the laugh that he fell for and her tenacity and no-bullshit attitude. “She’s always been there for our children and I know she’ll be there for yours too,” he said.
He talked a lot about how his Jewish childhood in New Jersey — riding his bike around town, taking the bus to Hebrew school and little league practice — represents to him a kind of idyllic America, one where “wherever you ended up at dinnertime, that’s who fed you.” He also talked about how Kamala “has connected me more deeply to my faith.”
“She comes to synagogue with me to High Holidays services,” he said, adding that he goes with her to church on Easter. “She makes a mean brisket for Passover,” he vouched, one that brings him back to his grandparents’ Brooklyn apartment, the one with the plastic-covered couches. She also reminds him, he said, of the values of his childhood home, and of his two Brooklyn-born Jewish parents. “She stands up to bullies just like my parents taught me to,” he said, as people in the crowd waved signs that said “Doug for First Mensch.” He told the crowd that Thursday would be their 10th wedding anniversary, when Kamala will replay for him, as she does every year, the embarrassing voicemail that he left her before their first blind date. It’s also the day when she will officially become the Democratic nominee for president.
“Kamala was the right person for me at an important moment in my life,” he finished his speech, “and at this moment in our nation’s history, she is exactly the right president.”
Emhoff clearly aced his speech, but posts on his social media show that the veteran entertainment lawyer and Georgetown law professor was nervous about delivering it. Luckily, his cheering team included not only his children, Ella and Cole, but his parents, Mike and Barb, who shared the sweetest video to energize him for his speech and to share their love for both him and Kamala. They shared their feelings about the man Mike says is better known as “Dougiiiiie.” Barbara shared that people love her son because “whatever he does, it comes from the heart.”
“Kamala is the most wonderful daughter-in-law. We have spent many a Sunday dinner with her,” Barb said, sharing the ultimate Jewish mom compliment: “She’s a fabulous cook.”
And then, she gave Kamala, who once shared a pretty accurate Barb impression, a dose of her own medicine by imitating her voice and inflection when she shared that every Sunday, she calls them and says, “Hi, hi, how are you, we love you, we love you.” She definitely channeled her daughter-in-law pretty perfectly.
“I want you to be inspired tonight and give an amazing speech. Give them your values and talk from the heart,” Mike said.
“We love you,” Barbara confirmed.
