Former President Joe Biden on Tuesday warned that America is a rustic the place “no one’s king,” as he lambasted President Donald Trump’s early actions as damaging and warned that additional Social Safety cuts might have an effect on tens of millions of Individuals.
Biden’s remarks in Chicago on the 2025 nationwide convention of Advocates, Counselors, and Representatives for the Disabled marked his first public rebuttal of the Trump administration within the early days of his post-presidential life.
With out uttering Trump’s title, Biden known as the Republican White Home’s actions up to now “breathtaking” when it comes to their stage of destruction throughout a 27-minute deal with earlier than incapacity advocates at a downtown Chicago resort.
“Fewer than 100 days, this new administration has made so — has carried out a lot harm and a lot destruction. It’s form of breathtaking that it might occur that quickly,” Biden stated.
The previous Democratic president warned the nation has by no means been “this divided.”
“No person’s king. No person’s the boss. Everyone has a shot. All individuals are asking for is a shot,” Biden stated. “Honesty, decency, the place arduous work is rewarded. Have some religion in one another. Equity, easy equity. We will’t go on like this as a divided nation, as divided as we’re.”
Biden additionally responded to Musk’s claims that Social Safety is a “Ponzi scheme,” however referred to Trump’s influential adviser as “certainly one of them.”
“What the hell are they speaking about? Individuals earn these advantages. They paid into that profit. They depend on that profit,” Biden stated. “And nobody, nobody, nobody ought to take it away.”
Whereas Trump has continued to disparage Biden within the early days of his presidency, together with a Fact Social on Monday which dubbed him “Crooked Joe Biden,” the previous Democratic president had been preserving quiet in his Trump critiques previous to Tuesday’s deal with.
The Social Safety Administration has endured its share of controversy underneath Trump’s second time period, together with a lawsuit over Trump’s determination to permit Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, to entry Social Safety numbers.
Trump and Musk additionally slashed 1000’s of jobs on the SSA, with extra deliberate — and recipients have reported large outages on a web based advantages portal. Trump was additionally anticipated to signal a presidential memorandum “aimed toward stopping unlawful aliens, and different ineligible individuals, from acquiring” Social Safety advantages — regardless of it already being unlawful for immigrants who lack authorized standing to obtain advantages.
In introducing Biden on the convention, former Social Safety Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley stated Trump and Musk have “gutted the Social Safety Administration with a chainsaw.” He known as Trump administration claims about useless individuals and unlawful immigrants receiving advantages fraudulently “an enormous lie.”
“The American individuals aren’t shopping for it,” O’Malley stated. “They’re not shopping for it as a result of it’s not true.”
Democrats have been sounding the alarm on potential cuts to Social Safety for months, which they worry will likely be used to subsidize tax cuts for the rich. Gov. JB Pritzker final month accused Trump and Musk of gutting the Social Safety Administration and requiring recipients to indicate up in particular person “to show that they should get social safety.”
The Social Safety Administration final month introduced a plan that may have required in-person identification checks for brand spanking new and current recipients, in keeping with the Related Press. That might have impacted anybody who must confirm their financial institution data, or those that obtain advantages however can’t confirm sure data on-line. That plan, nevertheless, was partially reversed, with the Social Safety Administration saying that individuals who aren’t in a position to make use of a web based portal can full their declare on the cellphone, as a substitute of in-person. These modifications started on April 14.
“I’d name it idiotic if I didn’t suspect that that is truly a part of a plan to throw individuals off of Social Safety,” Pritzker stated. “Longer wait instances for these on the lookout for help with their advantages, improper denial of claims and delayed or missed profit checks. That’s what they’re hoping for.”
On Tuesday, Pritzker defended critiques of Biden’s so-called “surfacing,” about three months after leaving workplace.
“As I’ve at all times stated about President Biden, he wears his coronary heart on his sleeve,” Pritzker stated. “He’s somebody who has nice empathy. And I feel in his post-presidency, what an ideal factor for him to be doing, actually, to be assembly with individuals with disabilities, organizations that arise for them and highlighting Social Safety, which is underneath assault by the brand new administration.”
In the meantime, White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt took a jab at Biden throughout Tuesday’s White Home briefing.
“I’m shocked that he’s talking at nighttime,” Leavitt stated. “I believed his bedtime was a lot sooner than his speech tonight.”
