This Tuesday was the second night of the Democratic National Convention, and it was Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s turn to speak up for his wife, current Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and explain why the nation should elect her president. In his speech, Emhoff, this nation’s first-ever Second Gentleman and the one who installed the first mezuzah in the Vice President’s residence, referenced his Jewish identity, one 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 images that was produced with high production values and felt like a typical bar mitzvah montage. In fact, Cole even shared a photo of Doug as a teenager in a white suit and large floral bow tie, flanked by his parents and siblings in matching formal wear, explaining, “This is what my dad wore to his bar mitzvah.” As is common in many bar mitzvah slideshows, there was also a picture of Doug at Jewish summer camp, where Cole said his father claimed he was voted the most athletic.
Cole talked about his dependable lawyer father, whom his mother Kerstin (who produced the charming video) called “the crisis guy,” and his roots in New Jersey and LA. He also mentioned Doug’s Jewish parents who think he “can walk on water,” and the complexities of being a child of divorce, but also the joy he and his sister Ella felt when they saw him fall in love with Kamala and act like teenagers. He talked about how, when they got married, she became their “Momala,” and how his father and Kamala showed him what true partnership is (Cole recently got married and Kamala officiated the ceremony). He shared that when Kamala was elected vice president, Doug felt a little out of place on Capitol Hill, at least in his eyes, and that Cole and Ella wondered, “What is my silly dad doing here?” But he added that “he has found his voice on the issues that matter to him,” as he showed videos and pictures of Doug speaking about fighting anti-Semitism and visiting Auschwitz and the Berlin Holocaust Memorial. “We may 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 to the stage.
Doug came out to “You Get What You Give” by LA band New Radicals and began gushing about Cole and his “big, beautiful blended family.” He then paid special tribute to his mother, Barb, who he said is “the only one who thinks Kamala is the lucky one because she married me,” and then pointed to her standing next to her husband and granddaughter Ella, wearing a hamsa necklace around her neck. In his speech, which included loving details about how he met and fell in love with Kamala, Doug compared the way Kamala was there for his family when they needed her to the way she will be there for the country — the laugh he fell in love with and her tenacity and no-bullshit attitude. “She was always there for our kids and I know she will be there for yours, too,” he said.
He talked a lot about how his Jewish childhood in New Jersey – he rode his bike around town, took the bus to Hebrew school and Little League practice – represented to him a kind of idyllic America, a land where “the place you ended up for dinner was the one that fed you.” He also talked about how Kamala “connected[him]more deeply to my faith.”
“She comes to synagogue with me for High Holiday services,” he said, adding that he goes to church with her on Easter. “She makes an excellent brisket for Passover,” he vowed, one that reminds him of his grandparents’ Brooklyn apartment, the one with the plastic-covered couches. She also reminds him of the values of his childhood home and of both of his Brooklyn-born Jewish parents. “She stands up to bullies, just like my parents taught me,” he said, as people in the crowd waved signs reading “Doug for First Mensch.” He told the crowd that Thursday would be their 10th wedding anniversary, when, as she does every year, Kamala would play him the embarrassing voicemail he left her before their first blind date. It is also the day she officially becomes the Democratic presidential nominee.
“Kamala was the right person for me at an important moment in my life,” he concluded, “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 attorney and Georgetown Law professor was nervous about delivering it. Luckily, his team of fans consisted of not only his children Ella and Cole, but also his parents Mike and Barb, who shared the sweetest video to encourage him for his speech and express their love for him and Kamala. They shared their feelings for the man better known as “Dougiiiiiie,” according to Mike. 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 Sunday dinners with her,” said Barb, giving the ultimate compliment from a Jewish mother: “She is a fabulous cook.”
And then she gave Kamala, who once did a pretty accurate Barb impersonation, a dose of her own medicine by mimicking her voice and intonation when she said she calls her every Sunday 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 a powerful speech. Share your values and speak from the heart,” Mike said.
“We love you,” Barbara confirmed.
