Former President Joe Biden took aim at President Donald Trump and Elon Musk during the first speech of his post-presidency.
Biden headlined the Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled conference in Chicago Tuesday evening.
The 82-year-old loudly asked: ‘Who in the hell do they think they are?’ as he went after Trump, Republicans and DOGE for destabilizing Social Security.
‘Why are these guys taking aim at Social Security now?’ the former president asked. ‘They’re following that old line from tech startups – the quote is “move fast, break things.” They’re shooting first and aiming later.’
Without saying Trump’s name, nor Musk’s, he said they were creating ‘needless pain and sleepless nights.’
Biden quoted Martin O’Malley, the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration during his administration and the man who introduced the former president at Tuesday’s event.
‘My friend Gov. O’Malley knows what they’re really up to, he says, and I love this quote – they want to wreck it so they can rob it,’ Biden went on. ‘Why do they want to rob it? To deliver huge tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations and keep it going.’
President Joe Biden gave the first speech of his post-presidency, taking aim at President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, but not calling them out by name
During his introduction of Biden, O’Malley called out Trump and Musk saying that they have ‘gutted the Social Secuity Administration with a chainsaw’ creating the ‘largest exodus of staff the agency has ever suffered.’
O’Malley said their ‘big lie’ during Trump 2.0 was that ‘there’s a massive zombie apocalypse of dead people’ on the Social Security rolls.
The former Maryland governor said the other big lie was that illegal immigrants were ‘sucking Social Security dry.’
O’Malley pointed out that it’s already illegal for undocumented immigrants to receive Social Security benefits.
Over all, the pushed that DOGE’s efforts were a ‘massive breaking-and-entering in process.’
Biden joked a bit about DOGE’s findings before turning more serious.
‘By the way, those 300-year-old folks getting Social Security, I’d like to meet them,’ the 82-year-old said. ‘Helluva thing man. I’m looking for longevity. Because it is hell when you turn 40 years old,’ he said to laughs.
It was old-age concerns that prompted Biden to drop out of the presidential race last summer, helping set the table for Trump’s return.
Former President Joe Biden took aim at President Donald Trump (left) and Elon Musk (right), though didn’t call them out by name, in the first speech of his post-presidency Tuesday night in Chicago
Biden turned to similar themes that he spoke about throughout his entire career, including that a job is more than just a paycheck, it’s ‘dignity.’
He spoke of hard working Americans all across the country.
‘The last thing they need from their government is deliberate cruelty,’ he said.
Biden also knocked the MAGA movement more generally.
‘I said I’ve been doing this a long time, it’s never been this divided. Granted it’s roughly 30 percent, but it’s a 30 percent that has no heart,’ the former president said.
Biden had been keeping a low-profile since leaving office in January, though outside the confines of the presidency is again allowed to ride his beloved Amtrak – between Wilmington, Delaware and Washington, D.C.
Fellow passengers have posted images of the 82-year-old leader on board the train.
Ahead of his first post-presidential address, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt mocked the Democrat.
‘My first reaction when seeing former President Biden was speaking tonight was: I’m shocked that he is speaking at night time,’ Leavitt said from the podium Tuesday.
Following Biden’s disastrous Atlanta debate performance last June, Axios reported that the president was ‘dependably engaged’ between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Outside those hours, aides told the news site, Biden would ‘have verbal miscues and become fatigued.’
‘I thought his bedtime was much earlier than his speech tonight,’ Leavitt cracked to the press corps.
Biden’s speech Tuesday was originally scheduled for 4:45 p.m. CDT.
The former president, known for being consistenly late, kicked off the speech at 5:14 p.m. CDT.
Leavitt tried to get in front of any attacks Biden made about Republicans defunding Social Security.
‘Let me make it very clear ahead of former President Biden’s remarks, the president, this president, President Trump, is absolutely certain about protecting Social Security benefits for law-abiding, tax-paying American citizens and seniors who have paid into this program,’ Leavitt said.
