The daughter of the COVID victim gave the sharpest speech on the DNC’s first night.

On its first night, organizers of the Democratic National Convention sought to strike emotionally resonant notes with choreographed patriotic songs and, more seriously, interviews with victims and experts in racial violence. But after a series of politicians and pundits condemned the president and spoke about the evils of a divided country, one of the most powerful moments of the night came when an ordinary citizen showed up to speak. of the coronavirus pandemic.

After New York Governor Andrew Cuomo spoke about the nation’s failures in the face of the pandemic, the video was cut to a woman named Kristin Urquiza, giving the camera a direct address from her home. Urquiza suddenly gained national notoriety when she wrote an obituary for her father, who died of COVID-19 on June 30. Mark Anthony Urquiza had fallen ill after going to a karaoke bar with his friends when the stay-at-home order was lifted. Arizona. In her father’s obituary, Urquiza expressed her anger at her grief. And on Monday night, almost immediately, she launched herself where she blamed her father’s death:

My dad, Mark Anthony Urquiza, should be here today, but he’s not. He trusted Donald Trump. He voted for him, listened to him, believed him and his spokespersons when they said the coronavirus was under control and was going to go away; that it was okay to end the social distancing rules before it was safe; and that if you didn’t have any underlying health issues, you would probably be fine.

The words echoed those in the obituary: “His death is due to the negligence of politicians who continue to jeopardize the health of the Brown Bodies through an obvious lack of leadership, the refusal to recognize the seriousness of this crisis, and the inability and unwillingness to give clear and decisive direction on how to minimize risk, ”she wrote. In interviews in the weeks that followed, she made it clear that she placed the blame on Trump and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey. On the very day of her father’s funeral, she set up an ofrenda outside the Arizona State Capitol with a call for people to add photos of loved ones lost to the disease.

On Monday, Urquiza again described her father’s rapid decline after falling ill, saying he died “alone in the intensive care unit with a nurse holding his hand”. She continued, “My father was a healthy 65 year old man. His only pre-existing condition was to trust Donald Trump, and for that he paid with his life.

During the video, her words were illustrated with photos of happy family, followed by photos of her at her father’s grave. “The coronavirus has clearly shown that there are two Americas: the America in which Donald Trump lives and the America in which my father died,” she said.