In this combination image from video, former first lady Michelle Obama, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and former Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich speak during the first night of the Democratic National Convention on Monday, Aug. 17, 2020. (Democratic National Convention via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Michelle Obama delivered a passionate condemnation of President Donald Trump during the opening night of the Democratic National Convention, declaring him “in over his head” and warning that the nation’s mounting crises would only get worse if he’s reelected over Joe Biden.

“Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country,” she said. “He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us.”

The former first lady was the headliner at the first presidential nominating convention of the coronavirus era.

There was no central meeting place or cheering throng during the all-virtual affair Monday night. But it was an opportunity for Democrats — and some Republicans — to rally behind Biden, the party’s presidential nominee.

Bernie Sanders, the progressive Vermont senator who was Biden’s last standing rival during the primary, encouraged his loyal supporters to vote for the former vice president in November, arguing the nation can’t survive another four years of Trump. He notably backed Biden’s plan for tackling health care, one of their most substantive differences in the past. Sanders backs a Medicare for All plan while Biden has called for expanding the current “Obamacare” law.

But it was Michelle Obama, making her fourth convention appearance, who once again delivered an electrifying moment. Wearing a necklace that said “vote,” she tapped into her enduring popularity among Black voters and college educated suburban women — voters Biden will need to show up in force.

She issued a stark warning to a country already navigating health and economic crises along with a reckoning on racism.

“If you think things possibly can’t get worse, trust me, they can and they will if we don’t make a change in this election,” she said as she issued a call to action for the coalition of young and diverse voters who twice sent her family to the White House.

Trump responded to Obama Tuesday, tweeting that he wouldn’t be in the “beautiful White House” today if it “weren’t for the job done by her husband,” former President Barack Obama. He ended with a sarcastic thanks to Michelle Obama for her “very kind words.”

The president sought to steal focus from the convention on Monday by hosting a political rally in Wisconsin, where Biden’s party had originally planned this week’s convention. He will be on the road again Tuesday, traveling to the southern border in Arizona and reviewing recent storm damage in Iowa.

Biden’s wife, Jill, will get top billing at the Democratic convention on Tuesday. A longtime teacher, she’ll speak from her former classroom at Brandywine High School near the family home in Wilmington, Delaware.

The convention will culminate with Biden formally accepting the nomination on Thursday.

As the week unfolds, Biden faces questions about whether the convention will energize the disparate factions he hopes to thread into a coalition. He used the opening night to demonstrate the broad ideological range of his supporters.

On the same night he was praised by Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who championed a multitrillion-dollar universal health care plan, Biden also won backing from Ohio’s former Republican Gov. John Kasich, an anti-abortion conservative who spent decades fighting to cut government spending.

Monday’s speeches were framed by emotional appearances from average Americans touched by the crises that have exploded on Trump’s watch.

Philonise and Rodney Floyd led a moment of silence in honor of their brother, George Floyd, the Minnesota man whose death while in police custody sparked a national moment of awakening on racial injustice.

“George should be alive today,” Philonise Floyd said.

Also speaking was Kristin Urquiza, an Arizona woman who lost her father to COVID-19, which has killed more than 170,000 people in the United States.

“My dad was a healthy 65-year-old,” she said. “His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that, he paid with his life.”

And Rick Telesz, a Pennsylvania farmer, warned that Trump’s trade war has had a “truly a devastating effect” on his farm before the coronavirus brought another blow with what he called “misinformation” coming from the country’s leadership.

“My biggest concern is that if these trends continue with this type of leadership, I will be the last generation farming this farm,” he said.