(The Center Square) – Former U.S. President Joe Biden has returned to the public eye with a speech in Chicago Tuesday night blasting current President Donald Trump.
In a rare public appearance since leaving office in January, Biden spoke Tuesday at the Advocates, Counselors, and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD) conference in Chicago.
Biden said 73 million Americans receive Social Security benefits.
“Social Security is more than a government program. It’s a sacred promise we made as a nation, a sacred promise,” Biden said.
The former president suggested that the Trump administration might reduce Social Security benefits, despite Trump and his administration repeatedly saying it would not.
“To cut or take it away would be devastating, devastating for millions of people. And the psychological pressure we put people under by having this debate is absolutely devastating,” Biden said.
According to a White House statement posted last month, the Trump administration will not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits. It’s a statement Trump has repeatedly made.
Biden suggested that Trump would pay for $5 trillion in tax cuts by taking money from other programs.
“Where are they gonna get $5 trillion to pay for it while they continue to run the deficit up? Well, where they always do, by running up the national debt, number one, and then by taking the money by someplace else. What are the two big pots of money out there in raw numbers? Social Security and Medicaid,” Biden said.
Annual budget deficits under the Biden administration soared to nearly $2 trillion in fiscal 2024 under Biden.
“They’ve taken a hatchet to the Social Security Administration,” Biden said of the Trump White House.
The Social Security Administration announced plans earlier this year to reduce its workforce from 57,000 employees to 50,000, mainly through voluntary retirements and resignations.
The agency also stated on its website that it made an estimated $72 billion in improper payments between 2015 and 2022.
Trump has said several times that he would not cut Social Security benefits for Americans.
At a separate event Tuesday, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker was asked if Democrats needed Biden to resurface at this time.
“Now that sounds like a question that was designed by someone of the opposite party. I’ll just say, remember that President Biden is here for an event about Social Security and about people with disabilities,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker said the event was the perfect thing for Biden to be doing.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley introduced Biden Tuesday, calling him “the strongest defender of Social Security America ever had.”
O’Malley also spent several minutes criticizing the Trump administration.
Before Biden’s speech, the ACRD referred to the event as “a watershed moment for Social Security advocacy.”
“Traditionally, former presidents take time away from the public eye before re-engaging on major policy issues. In light of the unprecedented threats facing Social Security, however, the President has chosen this pivotal moment for his immediate re-engagement,” the ACRD stated on its website.
Biden was president from 2021 to 2024. He dropped out of his campaign for reelection last July and endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris for president. Harris won the Democratic nomination but lost the general election to Trump in November.
