“Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn’t it?” Michelle Obama said at the start of her speech Tuesday evening at the Democratic National Convention.

That something was a rekindling of the 2008 energy that catapulted her husband Barack to the presidency—a buzz Democrats have sought and failed to recapture in the decade since the Obamas left the White House. “Hope is making a comeback,” Michelle declared.

Live Updates From the Democratic National Convention

And over the hour that she and Barack spoke to their hometown Chicago crowd, “Yes we can” also made a comeback. As did “Don’t boo, vote.” The Obamas implored Democrats to get out and vote, to believe yet again in the power of community and the DIY spirit underpinning the American experiment. It was all a throwback to a time and place long before Donald Trump descended a golden escalator and blustered and bullied his way into the White House.

However, their speeches were not all 2008-era hope and change. The Obamas took turns personally roasting Trump, with Michelle taking jabs at his penchant for whining and racist rhetoric and Barack maybe making a penis-size joke while mocking Trump’s “weird obsession” with crowd sizes.

Michelle dedicated most of her speech to touting Kamala Harris as hard-working and worthy of the top job. She is “one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency,” the former first lady said, “and she is one of the most dignified.” But Obama brought down the house when she trained her focus on Trump, mentioning him by name only once but very precisely tearing into his many business failings, his silver-spoon upbringing, and his racist attacks on her and her family. “For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us,“ she said. “His limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black.” And then, amid rapturous applause, she delivered another blow: “I want to know, who is going to tell him that the job he currently is seeking might be one of those ‘Black jobs’?”

When Barack took the stage to chants of “Yes we can”—two full decades after his fateful debut at the 2004 DNC in Boston, a speech that launched him into the national spotlight—he declared himself “feeling ready to go, even if I am the only person stupid enough to speak after Michelle Obama.” The former president described Trump as a 78-year-old billionaire standing outside America’s window with a leaf blower. “We do not need four more years of bluster, and bumbling, and chaos,” he said. “We have seen that movie before and we all know that the sequel is usually worse.”

Obama made sure to heap praise on President Joe Biden, reflecting upon their eight years in the White House together and their steady friendship. “History will remember Joe Biden as an outstanding president who defended democracy at a moment of great danger,” he said. “And I am proud to call him my president. But I am even prouder to call him my friend.”

Biden was notably absent from the United Center as Obama lauded his decision to step aside from the 2024 ticket—a move Obama reportedly had a hand in making happen. “Now, the torch has been passed,” Obama asserted before pivoting to a “new chapter,” which he identified as a President Kamala Harris.