CHICAGO — Former President Joe Biden used his first public remarks since he left office in January to rebuke the Trump administration’s approach to Social Security, saying its cuts were already putting the institution in peril for millions of deserving Americans.
In roughly a half-hour of remarks Tuesday before disability advocates, Biden — often speaking in a subdued, hushed tone — did not mention President Donald Trump by name, referring to him instead as “this guy,” and held back from robust criticism of the administration.
Biden more broadly took aim at Trump’s tenure so far, saying that in “fewer than 100 days, this new administration has made so much … damage and so much destruction. It’s kind of breathtaking.”
“We can’t go on like this as a divided nation, as divided as we are. Like I said, I’ve been doing this a long time. It’s never been this divided,” Biden said. “Granted, it’s roughly 30%, but it’s a 30% that has no heart.”
It’s not clear what group of people the 30% remark referred to.
White House spokesman Steven Cheung sharply criticized Biden, saying his “incoherent speech” showed he had a “feeble mind” in a “rapid decline to new lows.”
“President Trump has repeatedly promised to protect Social Security and ensure higher take-home pay for seniors by ending the taxation of Social Security benefits. Anybody saying otherwise is either stupid or an all-out liar, or both in Biden’s case,” Cheung said in a statement.
After his election, Trump told NBC News that “we’re not touching Social Security,” other than to make it more efficient. But since Trump took taking office, billionaire Elon Musk has cut staffing at the agency. Musk also prompted a flare-up among Trump allies after he called Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
Biden referred to the comment Tuesday.
“We heard others, empowered and emboldened by this administration, talk about Social Security; one of them called it a Ponzi scheme,” Biden said. “A Ponzi scheme — what the hell are they talking about? People earn these benefits. They paid into that benefit. They rely on that benefit. And no one, no one, no one should take it away.”
Biden also referred to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — also without naming him — painting him as detached from the average American. Biden cited comments Lutnick has made that his mother-in-law wouldn’t complain if she didn’t get her next Social Security check.
“The current secretary of commerce doesn’t seem to get it, or based on his comments, he doesn’t seem to even care,” Biden said. “He said his 94-year-old mother-in-law wouldn’t complain. Wouldn’t bother her. She’s probably a lovely woman. No kidding. Her-son-in-law is a billionaire. What about that 94-year-old mother living all by herself? Don’t have a billionaire in the family. All the retirees who depend on that monthly check to feed themselves. All those people with disabilities have no other source. What about all those?”
Despite a regular churn of verbal abuse from Trump, it was the first time Biden has spoken publicly since he left the White House on Jan. 20. But on Tuesday, he did not offer a defense of himself or his own administration.
At times, it was difficult to hear Biden — so much so that those in the room at the event remained still and quiet to hear him speak.
Shortly after the speech, Trump put up a post on Truth Social, featuring a clipped video of Biden during the speech, saying, “I had never seen, I’d never seen hardly any Black people in Scranton at the time, and I was only going on fourth grade. And I remember seeing the kids going by — at the time, called colored kids — on a bus going by.”
In context Trump left out, Biden went on to say that the fact that the bus went to a different school “sparked his outrage” as a kid and inspired him to get involved in politics.
Trump routinely chastises Biden, having called him “the worst president in American history.” He frequently characterizes Biden’s tenure as a mess that his administration must now clean up, particularly with regard to border security. In the earliest days of his second term, Trump repeatedly blamed lagging economic indicators on Biden. Soon, however, it was Trump’s own topsy-turvy tariff policies that threw the stock market into disarray.
Biden spoke to a conference for Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled at the Sofitel Hotel on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. The meeting focused on strengthening Social Security at a moment when the Trump administration has set its sights on revamping the agency in a way that beneficiaries fear could put them in peril.
Last month, Biden spoke at a National High Schools Model United Nations event, but the speech it was not open to members of the media.
Biden, 82, left office deeply at odds with his own party, which pressured him to abandon his re-election bid in the wake of a devastating presidential debate against Trump in June, when Biden struggled at times to express a clear thought. The debacle aggravated long-standing concerns about his age and mental capacity.
Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, claimed the Democratic nomination and embarked on a whirlwind, 107-day campaign against Trump that shattered fundraising records, offering fleeting hope to the party. Ultimately, Harris went on to lose to Trump, including in each of six battleground states, as well as the popular vote.
In January, Biden said in an interview that he believed he could have defeated Trump had he run again — but at the same time, he admitted in the USA Today interview that he was unsure he could have served out a full term.
