Breaking with tradition in these far-from-normal times, Joe Biden hit the stage Tuesday in Chicago to take swipes at Donald Trump in Biden’s first public speech since leaving the White House in January. The occasion earned the former president a harsh rebuke from a top Trump insider.
“Nobody’s king, nobody’s the boss, everyone has a shot,” Biden warned of the promise of America and Trump’s “no heart” authoritarian rule without ever actually mentioning the current president’s name. In that sense, while the tone was much more muted, Biden stuck to the script delivered by his ex-VP Kamala Harris in her fiery speech earlier this month.
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However, if you were expecting the former president to sound the call and rally the troops to resist his predecessor and successor’s attacks on the separation of powers and the rule of law, today’s remarks might be a case of too little too late.
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“Fewer than 100 days into this new administration, they have done so much damage and destruction,” the 46th POTUS told a conference hosted by the Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled in some of his roughest language. “It is kind of breathtaking it could happen that soon. They’ve taken a hatchet to the Social Security Administration, pushing out 7,000 employees, including the most seasoned officials.”
Biden’s Social Security-focused speech comes on a day that Democrats declared a “day of action” against Trump, Elon Musk and the GOP’s assault on the program and its staff. As with most initiatives by the Dems since Trump’s been back in the White House, the party’s effort was little known and widely overlooked.
“Ask yourself, ‘Why is this happening?’” Biden said in his prepared remarks that were full of the 82-year-old Democrat’s well-worn anecdotes and truisms along with present-day political observations. “Why are these guys taking aiming at Social Security now? Well, they’re following that old line of tech startups. The quote is, ‘Move fast, break things.’ They’re certainly breaking things. They’re shooting first and aiming later. As a result, there’s always a lot of needless pain and sleepless nights.”
Unlike the wall-to-wall coverage he received in the White House, Biden’s nearly 30-minute speech (short by Uncle Joe’s standards but featuring Biden’s oft-halting delivery) was picked up by cable newsers in stops and starts. Even as the strongly institutional Biden broke with tradition and criticized his predecessor early in his term, the New York Times did not feature the speech on its homepage, while the Washington Post had a story way down on its site. Run in full by C-SPAN, a feed of Biden’s appearance popped up online but didn’t pop much. Later in the evening, clips blanketed MSNBC, CNN and Fox News, whose Laura Ingraham mocked the “technical difficulties” that marred the start of the remarks. “Poor man, poor us,” she said, ripping Biden’s frequent rambling.
Biden actually had given a post-presidential speech before today, but his appearance before the National High School Modern United Nations last month was pretty much under the radar. Other than a pre-recorded virtual appearance before a DNC meeting, a trip to Denzel Washington‘s Othello on Broadway and some tweets, the former president has been AWOL. Trump, on the other hand, never seems to go a day or miss an opportunity to slam “worst president ever” Biden.
In many ways, with several Democrats like Biden’s former Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel showing up on CNN in his paid-contributor capacity to caution against the aged POTUS 46’s return, the tone was set by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt earlier Tuesday. “I’m shocked that he is speaking at nighttime,” she derided the CAA-repped Biden at today’s White House press briefing. “I thought his bedtime was much earlier than his speech tonight.”
Protecting her boss, Leavitt added: “Let me make it very clear ahead of former President Biden’s remarks: This president, President Trump, is absolutely certain about protecting Social Security benefits for law-abiding, taxpaying American citizens and seniors who have paid into this program.”
While Trump himself atypically has said nothing directly about Biden’s speech thus far, the ex-Celebrity Apprentice host made sure tonight to signal his bitter scorn for the man who beat him in 2020. Trump posted a clip from Biden’s speech of the ex-president talking about the civil rights battle against segregation and using the hurtful term “colored kids”:
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung reposted his boss’ clip but added some spite:
Also, as Biden was speaking in Chicago, the White House released a flurry of executive orders from Trump, including one that seeks to refine the fed’s Medicare drug-price negotiations from one of Biden’s signature health care policies.
Further dishing out the Trumpland tactic of flooding the zone, Biden’s warnings about Trump’s plans for Social Security saw the agency itself take to Elon Musk’s X after the former president spoke.