Gladness Gideon
In a sharp rebuke of Donald Trump’s early presidency, former U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday accused his successor of endangering the livelihoods of millions of Americans through sweeping government overhauls, particularly within the Social Security Administration.
Delivering his first major public address since stepping down from the 2024 re-election race, Biden spoke at a disability advocacy conference in Chicago, condemning what he described as a “hatchet job” on federal institutions under Trump’s administration.
“Fewer than 100 days, this administration has done so much damage, and so much destruction — it’s kind of breathtaking it could happen that soon,” Biden told the crowd, referencing major staff cuts and digital service failures affecting retirees and disabled citizens.
He claimed that nearly 7,000 employees have been pushed out of the Social Security Administration (SSA) since Trump took office in January, leaving the agency strained and unable to effectively serve over 65 million beneficiaries.
“They’ve taken a hatchet to the Social Security administration,” Biden said, raising concerns about the deteriorating accessibility of vital services. “The website is crashing, and seniors can’t even check on their benefits.”
The former president took aim at Trump’s controversial government streamlining initiative, the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency”, developed in coordination with tech billionaire Elon Musk. Biden suggested the effort was more about slashing services than improving them.
He argued that while Washington often discusses Social Security in political terms, for many Americans it’s not an abstract issue—it’s survival. “People literally count on Social Security to buy food, just to get by,” he said. “Many of these beneficiaries, it’s their only income.”
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Biden also blasted Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, a former hedge fund executive, over a comment suggesting that only “fraudsters” complain about missing benefits. Biden, visibly frustrated, responded: “What about the 94-year-old mother living all by herself — who doesn’t have a billionaire in the family?”
The remark underscored Biden’s effort to cast the new administration’s policies as disconnected from the realities facing everyday Americans, particularly the elderly and disabled.
Wearing a blue suit and standing before a backdrop of American flags, the 82-year-old Democrat addressed the crowd for roughly 30 minutes. At moments, he showed the signs of aging that led him to bow out of the 2024 race—stumbling over some sentences and cutting off tangents with a habitual “anyways.”
Despite that, Biden’s message was clear: Trump’s rapid transformation of federal agencies risks leaving vulnerable populations behind.
President Trump responded indirectly, posting a brief clip of one of Biden’s rambling anecdotes to social media, without comment. The video, seen by millions, reignited debates over the fitness and rhetoric of both men in the national discourse.
As the political landscape continues to shift post-election, Biden’s speech signals a renewed Democratic focus on protecting Social Security—long regarded as one of the most politically sensitive programs in Washington. The former president’s return to the spotlight may foreshadow further challenges to Trump’s aggressive reform agenda in the months ahead.