Thread by @mikememoli

. @JoeBiden set to take stage here any moment as he holds his first South Carolina event as an announced candidate

“Joe and I love South Carolina,” @DrBiden says in Columbia. Notes her husband just eulogized Fritz Hollings here last month. And that she and Joe have vacationed here for years

Biden in acknowledgements says @WhipClyburn isn’t here but says even better one of his daughters is on hand

Biden trying to get through remarks briskly as the air conditioning in the room stopped working before he went on stage.

Biden: "I think you all get it better than anybody that this election is different than any presidential election in our lifetime. Not because I’m running. ... Literally our democracy is at stake right now."

Biden saying he took great solace from service in Charleston after Mother Emanuel massacre. "I watched my buddy Barack up there. ... We have to find that amazing grace. There is amazing grace in this country we just have to reach out and pull this in."

Biden adds: "Above all we must defeat Donald Trump."

Biden: "That will be my measure of economic success: restoring the dignity of work."

As Biden is talking a torrential downpour outside is audible inside this gymnasium.

Biden revived an old chestnut, jokes that the way Obama talked about him "you'd think I just came out of a coal mine with a lunch bucket in my hand." Uses that to again praise Obama for his "enormous integrity."

Biden for the first time this campaign talking about efforts to make it harder to vote, "mostly directed at, quote, people of color. You see it. We’ve got Jim Crow sneaking back in.

Biden talking at length about tax loopholes, Trump tax cut and how to pay for new programs. "All you’ve got to do is take it back from those that don’t deserve it."

Biden name-checks Jim Clyburn again. Says he worked with him "on his anti-poverty initiative when I was vice president," trying to "end the legacy of systemic racism."

Biden notes that when he announced he wouldn't run in 2015, he said his one regret was that he wouldn't be the president to preside during a cancer cure. But now says if elected he will be.

After ending a 30-minute speech Biden promised to keep to under 20 because of the heat, Biden returned to the mic to joke someone told him to keep talking because of the storm outside. "I'm not!" he says, before literally dropping the mic