DNC 2020: Michelle Obama gives powerful speech after Bernie Sanders calls on viewers to fight against 'bigotry' and back Biden

Kasich needles AOC as both prepare to speak at convention

In a sign of just how brittle the broad electoral coalition Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is trying to cultivate is, two public figures scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Convention's opening night have traded barbs in recent days over who better represents the party and nation.

Former Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich, who is one of several Republicans scheduled to back Mr Biden in a speech on Monday, took a shot at Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose mere 60-second time slot on Monday has been criticised as a slap in the face to progressives.

"I think both parties have to have new ideas, and I think this country is moderate," Mr Kasich told Buzzfeed News.

"People on the extreme, whether they're on the left or on the right, they get outsized publicity that tends to define their party. You know, I listen to people all the time make these statements, and because AOC gets outsized publicity doesn't mean she represents the Democratic Party. She's just a part, just some member of it. And it's on both sides, whether it's the Republicans or whether it's the Democrats," he said.

Mr Kasich said he did not angle for the opportunity to speak at the convention, but that Democrats approached him.

"This was not something that I instigated," the former governor told Buzzfeed News last week.

"When they came and asked, 'Do you want to do it?' I had to think about it, right? I had to think about it. And it's not like I'm gonna be turning around. I'm a Republican. But I just think that at this point in time, my Republican affiliation is outweighed by my concern about the direction of the country."

Famous musicians set to perform at Dem convention

The Democratic National Convention will feature a rockstar list of speakers and performers — literally.

Among the expected musical performers are 18-year-old Billie Eilish, the youngest artist to win the four major Grammy categories in the same year; Common; Jennifer Hudson; and John Legend.

Maggie Rogers and Leon Bridges will perform on Monday night.

2020 the 'most consequential' election in a long time, Hillary Clinton says

As she prepares to deliver a speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton signaled the 2020 election is even more important than her own was.

The election between Democrat Joe Biden and Donald Trump this November is "the most consequential presidential election in a very long time," Ms Clinton said in an interview put on by the Atlantic Council on Monday.

"This is a moment of reckoning," Ms Clinton said.

She warned that Russia is once again interfering in the US election process through a malign online influence campaign to aid Mr Trump's campaign and shared that she regularly speaks with Mr Biden and was happy to see him choose Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate.

"You want to pick someone you believe can become president, if necessary — someone that you feel would be a good colleague that you can work with and can give increasing responsibility to and someone, obviously, who can help you win. And the vice president concluded that Senator Harris checks all those boxes," Ms Clinton said.

AOC hits back at Kasich

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has 60 seconds to speak during the opening night of the Democratic National Convention, chided former Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich on Twitter for calling her "extreme" and "just some member" of the Democratic party.

"It's great that Kasich has woken up & realized the importance of supporting a Biden-Harris ticket. I hope he gets through to GOP voters," Ms Ocasio-Cortez, a freshman congresswoman from New York, tweeted.

"Yet also, something tells me a Republican who fights against women's rights doesn't get to say who is or isn't representative of the Dem party," she said.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez branded the former Ohio governor, who has a much longer speaking slot at the DNC on Monday, as an "anti-choice extremist" who has "signed away our reproductive rights the moment he has the opportunity to do so."

Mr Kasich is a pro-life politician.

Trump to visit Iowa during heart of Dem convention

Donald Trump will stop in Iowa for an event in Cedar Rapids as part of his tour of key Midwestern swing states to counter the four-day Democratic National Convention this week, The Washington Post has reported.

The president was already scheduled to hold campaign events in Minnesota and Wisconsin on Monday.

Although he lost Minnesota in 2016 to Democrat Hillary Clinton, the Midwest was key to Mr Trump's electoral college victory that year.

Mr Trump's 2016 triumphs in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, which he won by a combined 77,744 votes, were enough to swing the electoral college in his favour even though he lost the nationwide popular tally by nearly 3m votes.

Could conventions matter more than ever this year?

Grant Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University in New York thinks so.

"The conventions this year might actually be more important than in relatively recent years past since the campaigns are very constrained in what they can do in person," Mr Reeher said.

"Those in-person events would normally drive a lot of the media coverage in the last few months of the campaign.  But that is only if people watch the conventions.  I'll be very curious to see the viewing ratings from them," said Mr Reeher.

The Biden campaign has been keeping a "low profile" other than the former vice president's decision to make Senator Kamala Harris his running mate. The conventions present a chance to let Mr Biden emerge from his shell.

Meanwhile, the Republican National Convention next week affords Donald Trump and his allies "a chance to try to speak directly to the American public, without a media filter, which has decisively turned against the Trump administration in the past year," Mr Reeher said.

Trump lands in Minnesota as Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders prepare to take stage

Desperate Housewife to moderate first night of convention

Desperate Housewives alum Eva Longoria will be moderator of the first night of the convention, followed Tracee Ellis Ross tomorrow, Kerry Washington on Wednesday and the Veep herself, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, on Thursday.

DNC chair: I can meet more delegates virtually

Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez says he's making the most of a virtual convention and that the new framework will allow him to visit with more delegates than he could with a traditional convention.

Perez told The Associated Press on Monday that he expects to attend "50 or 55" delegation and party caucus meetings online this week. There are 57 delegations representing the 50 states, six territories and Democrats Abroad, plus regional caucuses and other demographic-based caucuses.

In a normal convention, Perez said, a chairman might get to "a dozen or so." That's because the delegation breakfast meetings take place in and around the host city, all at the same time. That makes it logistically impossible to hop to more than a few each morning. This time, Perez is in the host city of Milwaukee, but he's based at the party's control centre in what amounts to a remote broadcast studio that allows him to hopscotch across DNC meetings and media interviews.

Perez dropped in virtually to seven gatherings, including the Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland delegations and the DNC Labor Council. He had several more on his list Monday afternoon ahead of the first night of prime-time programming.

Presumptive nominee Joe Biden's campaign also is dispatching top surrogates to delegation and caucus meetings and evening watch parties.

- Associated Press

BREAKING: Former senior Trump official Miles Taylor endorses Joe Biden in damning video

A former political appointee at the Department of Homeland Security has endorsed Joe Biden in a damning video produced by a Republican group against Donald Trump.

"What we saw week in and week out, and for me, after two and a half years in that administration, was terrifying," he said in a video. "We would go in to try to talk to him about a pressing national security issue -- cyberattack, terrorism threat -- he wasn't interested in those things. To him, they weren't priorities."

Mr Taylor, who had served as DHS chief of staff under former secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, is one of the highest-ranking former administration officials to endorse the president's rival.

"Given what I have experienced in the administration, I have to support Joe Biden for president and even though I am not a Democrat, even though I disagree on key issues, I'm confident that Joe Biden will protect the country and I'm confident that he won't make the same mistakes as this president," he said.

Mr Taylor claims that the president had directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to "cut off the money and no longer give individual assistance" to people in California following deadly wildfires in the state.

"He told us to stop giving money to people whose houses have burned down in a wildfire because he was so rageful that people in the state of California didn't support him and that politically it wasn't a base for him," Mr Taylor said.

The president wanted to "exploit" the DHS "for his own political purposes to fuel his own agenda," Mr Taylor has claimed.

Alex Woodward is following the story as it unfolds.