Joe Biden officially passed the baton to his Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) after two people who know him best: his wife and daughter, delivered two glowing speeches about him as a family man.

Ashley and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden spoke directly to the 46th president in Chicago and talked about how he led their family through dark times – the same way, they said, he led the Democratic Party and the nation.

In particular, the First Lady described her husband’s decision to step down as her party’s candidate for the 2024 presidential election as a moment when she fell in love with him all over again.

“Joe and I have been together for nearly 50 years, and yet there are moments when I fall in love with him all over again,” the First Lady said, recounting how she “saw him look deep into his soul and decide to no longer run for re-election and to support Kamala Harris with faith and conviction.”

Ashley Biden, the president’s youngest child, recalled her father’s support of her as an independent woman during her childhood.

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

Together, the two women portrayed the president as a tireless advocate for women’s rights who ultimately decided to make way for a woman when the moment called for it.

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

The timing of the introduction of her husband and father, the President, could not have been better for the Democrats.

The party has gone on the offensive against Donald Trump and his vice presidential candidate, Senator JD Vance, because it is about respect for women and their role in society – whether they are elected or not.

Republicans have faced scathing criticism from their opponents in recent weeks after comments from Vance in 2021 resurfaced that revealed he had insulted childless Americans, and women in particular. That scandal got even worse for the GOP last week when it was revealed that Vance, then running for Senate, had appeared on a right-wing podcast and sheepishly agreed when a host opined that postmenopausal women had no purpose in society other than to support their adult children as grandparents.

Harris, the first black woman chosen as a major political party’s nominee, has chosen to focus more on her opponents and their alleged views on women than on her own status as a history-making candidate for office. That approach is somewhat at odds with the rhetoric of some of her biggest supporters onstage Monday night, including women like the Bidens and Hillary Clinton, the party’s nominee in 2016. Clinton herself was the first woman to win a party’s nominating contest that year.

The first lady was greeted onstage by a wave of green signs bearing her name at the convention center. Her speech and that of her daughter helped refocus the evening on the sitting president – whose broadcast time was pushed back until late at night due to a combination of convention delays and protests outside that delayed the entry of some delegates and media.

Over the next three days, the focus of the convention is expected to shift even more to Harris as the party’s candidate.