Joe Biden Breaks Silence In First Public Event Since Leaving White House

Former President Joe Biden reemerged on the public stage on Tuesday for the first time since leaving the White House to stress the importance of Social Security and defend it amid attacks against its efficacy under Donald Trump.

“Social Security is more than just a government program. It’s a sacred promise,” Biden said at a conference in Chicago that was hosted by advocates for disabled people.

“From their first paycheck, people count on Social Security to be for them when they need it. We must never, ever turn our backs on that obligation,” he added.

Under Trump’s administration and billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Social Security has faced website outages, technical glitches and unanswered phone lines. Thousands of staff members at the agency administering the program have been laid off and dozens of field offices have been shuttered.

Biden called the deterioration of services in the program under Trump “breathtaking.”

“In fewer than 100 days, this new administration has done so much damage and done so much destruction….they’ve taken a hatchet to the Social Security Administration.”

More than 70 million retired and disabled Americans receive monthly Social Security benefits, with several million more enrolling every year.

Biden accused Republicans of seeking to “wreck” Social Security and other safety net programs to help finance a new package of tax cuts this year.

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“That’s going to cost $5 trillion. Where are they going to get $5 trillion? Where they always do, running up the national debt and by taking money from somewhere else,” he said.

The former president also whacked Trump’s advisers for controversial comments they made about Social Security in recent weeks, including Musk, who called the program a Ponzi scheme, and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who said his mother-in-law wouldn’t complain about missing one Social Security check.

“The current secretary of commerce doesn’t seem to get it. He doesn’t even seem to care,” Biden said.