Joe Biden on Tuesday accused Donald Trump and his billionaire lieutenant, Elon Musk, of taking a “hatchet” to the social security administration as part of their warp-speed effort to tear down the federal government.
In his first public remarks since leaving office, the former president avoided any mention of Trump – his predecessor and successor – by name but assailed the administration for threatening social security, which he called a “sacred promise” that more than 70 million Americans rely on each month.
“In fewer than 100 days, this new administration has done so much damage and so much destruction,” Biden said, addressing the national conference of Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled in Chicago. “It’s kind of breathtaking that it could happen that soon.”
Though it is unusual for a former president to return to the national stage so soon after exiting, Biden, 82, said he felt the issue was a matter of grave importance to millions of retirees and disabled Americans fearful that the check they rely on each month might not arrive on time – or at all.
On Tuesday, Democrats across the country held a day of action to “sound the alarm” over the Trump administration’s plans to downsize the social security administration, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said earlier on Tuesday. Biden referenced the sweeping cuts to the agency’s workforce and its services in his remarks.
“In the 90 years since Franklin Roosevelt created the social security system, people have always gotten their social security checks,” Biden said. “They’ve gotten them during wartime, during recessions, during a pandemic. No matter what, they got them. But now for the first time ever, that might change. It’d be a calamity for millions of families.”
Asked about his remarks earlier on Tuesday, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt mocked Biden’s age. “I’m shocked that he is speaking at nighttime. I thought his bedtime was much earlier than his speech tonight.” Trump is 78.
Biden also joked about his age, tweaking Trump for falsely claiming that millions of people born over a century ago are still receiving social security benefits. “I want to meet them because I’d like to figure out how they live that long,” he said, drawing laughs from the audience. “I’m looking for longevity.” Though Trump and Musk have both pointed to the inclusion of people in the database with no recorded death date, the glitch is well known and almost none of the people listed are recorded as receiving payments.
Trump has pledged that his administration would not touch social security and congressional Republicans have accused Democrats of spreading lies about their support for the popular program.
In a series of tweets on X, owned by Musk, the social security agency rebutted many of the points made in Biden’s speech, writing that the president has “repeatedly promised to protect social security and ensure higher-take home pay for seniors by ending taxation on social security benefits”.
Yet the Trump administration’s assault on the agency has left it in turmoil. Under the Trump administration, the agency has announced plans for deep staff reductions and dozens of offices closures, while policy changes have already begun to impact the program’s operations, leaving many beneficiaries fearful.
Biden talked about the “profound” psychological impact on beneficiaries who rely on the social security checks. “How do you sleep at night?” he said.
He also criticized Musk for calling the program a “Ponzi scheme” and comments made by Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, also a billionaire, who said his 94-year-old mother-in-law wouldn’t complain if she didn’t receive her social security check one month. “A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining,” he said on the business and tech podcast All-In last month.
“She’s probably a lovely woman,” Biden said of Lutnick’s mother-in-law, but agreed that she would probably not miss the payment. “No kidding, her son-in-law is a billionaire. What about the 94-year-old mother living all by herself?”
On Tuesday, Trump signed a presidential memo titled Preventing Illegal Aliens from Obtaining Social Security Act Benefits – a benefit undocumented people are already ineligible for under US law. The directive orders an expansion of the social security administration’s full-time fraud prosecutor program and directs officials to scrutinize earnings reports for “persons age 100 or older”. It also establishes a similar prosecution program for Medicare and Medicaid.
During Biden’s speech on Tuesday, he briefly reflected on the current state of affairs, urging Americans to uphold “fundamental American values”.
“Nobody’s king,” he said, before lamenting how divided the nation had become. Healing the “soul of America” was a campaign theme that elevated Biden to office in the depths of the pandemic in 2020, but the divisions seemed only to deepen over the next four years. In an apparent aside, he said there was roughly “30%” of the country that “has no heart” – a remark Trump supporters immediately interpreted an insult.
“It’s what we see in America,” he continued. “It’s what we believe in – fairness. And that’s the America we can never forget or walk away from.”
